Insect Life on the Western Arctic Coast of America He 
kept to the south side of the house where the thermometer, hanging free, showed 
40 degrees F. at 2 p.m.; on the refuse heaps outside the house the two smaller 
species {Fucellia ariciiformis and Scatella hrnnnipennis) were common; all of 
them were very much alive. 
Earh^ in May owing to the snow and hibernation period the tundra provided 
poor results in insects, but a few days later, better results were obtained. Under 
driftwood many collembola of different sizes, white, orange, and violet were 
found, and various small spiders, with egg cocoons of spiders and mites. The 
small fly, Scatella brunnipennis favoured specially the driftwood on moist, sandy 
ground; carabid beetles were seen, and young hemiptera (Chiloxanthes stellatus) 
coloured as dead grass and difficult to catch, as were some smaller flies with a 
similar habitat. 
Muscid larvae (Rhamphoniyia sp.), orange or green sawfly pupae {Amaurone- 
matus cogitatus), in transparent pupating cocoons in a special little cell communi- 
catmg with the air, various beetle larvae or pupae, and small staphylinid and 
carabid beetles, etc., were found in snow-free moss-pillows; and, on the tundra 
plants, the hairy larvae of all sizes, and cocoons \vith larvae or pupae of the moth 
Gynaephora rossi and probabl}^, also, of Hyphoraia alpina. Sometimes these 
cocoons contain only the larvae or pupae skins or eggs (on the outside) from 
previous years, or the pupae cases of the parasitic tachinid fly, (Euphorocera 
gelida). Spiders and leafhoppers (Chiloxanthes) are common in the grass. 
A small lepidopterous larva is also seen. It has a brown colour, but is paler 
on the ventral side; it has a chitinous-brown head and neckband and dark 
thoracic feet. It spins two willow leaves together and skeletonizes them, remain- 
ing inside where the larvae evidently hibernate. 
In the now completely melted tundra ponds are smaller, long-legged flies 
(Hydrophorus f) and a number of different collembola (Podura aquatica, Isotoma 
palustris, etc.) which are of three sizes. The smallest and most common are black- 
blue; some, a little larger are grey-brown, and a few — the largest — are green. 
Smaller dytiscid beetles (Agabus nigripalpis, Hydroporus humeralis, H. tar- 
taricus) are busily investigating the mud. Tiny, dark red water-mites ro.ove 
rapidly around in the water, propelled by their hairy legs, and searching for their 
prey, of which the brownish midge larvae (Tanypus sp.?) which wriggle along 
near the surface are probably the most important. Crawling on the muddy 
bottom are other somewhat larger watermites with tile-red body and dark 
purple legs; and dark coloured midge larvae insiclip mud tubes. Most conspicuous 
are the big dipterous larvae (tipulids, etc.); one species (Stygeropis sp.) keeps 
its long, hairy, anal processes surrounding the spiracles spread out at the surface 
and floats thus in the water; or it wriggles along over the mud bottom, with the 
"fan" closed; another species digs, with its head and lateral "legs" conspicuous 
furrows (tunnels) in the mud, the larvae when working being completely hidden 
at one end of the furrow. Other larvae, found dead, perhaps belong to the genus 
Tipula. 
The temperature of the pond mud at 5 p.m.. May 21, 1914, at Demarcation 
point, was 55.5 degrees, or 15.5 degrees warmer than the atmosphere. The 
ponds, though sometimes free of ice in early May, occasionally freeze over again, 
but this appears to have no effect on the aquatic animals, though alternating 
freezing and melting may continue until June. 
End of May, 22-31 
Insect life during this period is YQvy similar to that observed in the few pre- 
ceding and following days. The weather was cold and hazy or rainy, and not 
favourable to rapid development of insect hfe. Some plants get new leaves 
about the beginning of May and most of them by the end of May, so that, 
apart from predacious and carrion-feeding forms, the insects found in May are 
only larvae or pupae, the imagines first appearing when the flowers come out in 
June. 
