Habits of Pronuba syntJietica. 47 



moth not infrequently carries her bodj' across the stigma, so that at first 

 sight she ai)pears to be withch-awing it directly from the mouth of the 

 stylar canal; but I have never seen her make direct use of this canal. 

 The operation consumes more time than does the oviposition of either 

 ynccaseUa or maculata as I have observed them, and usually takes alto- 

 gether from two and a half to three minutes. Sometimes two or more 

 eggs are laid before the stigma is pollinated, but commonly after laying 

 each egg the moth retreats to the bottom of the flower and then again 

 ascends the pistil until her head is brought even with the stigma, when 

 she iineoils the large tentacles from their resting-place against her load 

 of pollen and passes them back and forth in the stigmatic chamber, with 

 almost the same motion as the eastern species, usually making use of one 

 of the stigmatic notches. "While so employed she carries the rather short 

 tongue almost straight out above the stigma, but I have never seen her 

 make any use of it to for^e pollen into the latter, nor has she been ob- 

 served to attempt to feed on the slight stigmatic secretion, nor to search 

 for food at the base of the flower, wher(», if anywhere, the nectar of the 

 septal glands should be found." 



Professor Trelease has not yet published anything upon the 

 otlier species of Yucca insects which he collected, and 1 take 

 this occasion to present some few unrecorded facts in reference 

 to some of the species of Prodoxus which he was kind enough 

 to send me, as also some additional data from other sources. 



The Species of Prodoxus. 



Prodoxus coloradensis. — This was described b}^ me from a single 

 male taken in 1884 by Mr. H. K. Morrison in Colorado. In 

 April, 1892, Mr. F. V. Coville, the present botanist of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, gave me a few small pieces of the flower- 

 stem of a Yucca infested by a Prodoxus larva. The [)lant was 

 collected in the Charleston mountains, Lincoln county, Nevada, 

 the previous February, and was undoubtedly Yucca haccata. 

 From tliese pieces of stem I reared early in the present month 

 two imagos wdiich jjroved to be Prodoxus coloradensis. 



I have also received from Professor Trelease four other col- 

 lected specimens, rather battered and imperfect, which belong 

 to this species, all taken from the flowers of Yucca haccata at 

 Banning, California. These two bred specimens are constant 

 and agree thoroughly well with the type, e.xcept that there is no 

 inclination to pale yellowish in the white scales of the head, and 

 tlie thorax shows vsome black scales on the tegul£e, a line of 

 black around the collar, and, in one of the specimens, along the 



