HABITS AND DESCRIPTION OF RAT-TAIL LARV^. 213 



Tlic natural inference from the above statement, as communicated 

 to me, is that the larvae were found in the tree at the time when it was 

 cut. Such a location for one of these peculiar larvte would seem so 

 different from tlieir usually assigned aquatic habitat, that the possi- 

 bility is suggested that the tree may have lain upon the ground suf- 

 ficiently long before its examination to have allowed the larva3 to have 

 entered the prostrate trunk while searching for a place for pupation. 

 But as tending to confirm a larvation of some of these species in the 

 mold of decaying portions of standing trees, we have the following 

 observations made at Berlin, Conn., by Mr. N. Coleman, of another 

 species of these curious forms : — 



A singular place for Rat-tailed Larvw. — I found several of these curious larvaR 

 in a branch of an old apple-tree that had just been cut down. They were below a 

 large nest of black ants, who had honey-combed the branch for quite a distance. 

 They were twenty -five millimeters long when crawling, not so much when at rest, 

 wrinkled and ridged rather remarkably, the tail a little longer than the body and 

 tipped with a row of bristles curved backward. {Psyche, ii, 1878, p. 154.) 



Habits of Rat-tail Larvae. 

 These species belong to a class which Reaumur called " vers a queue 

 de rat," and which are now commonly known as rat-tail larvce, from 

 the long tail-like appendage to their body, consisting of two tubes, one 

 of which can be drawn into the other like a telescope, through which 

 ai'r may be inhaled from the surface of the water when the body is 

 buried in the mud beneath. Eeaumur found, in some examples experi- 

 mented with, that the tail terminated in a little knob, perforated by 

 two holes for the reception of air, and having five little tufts of hair 

 which floated on the water. Having plnced some specimens of them in 

 a basin of water, he saw that " they kept in a perpendicular position 

 at the bottom, and parallel to one another, the extremities of their 

 tails being on the surface. He then increased the depth of the water 

 by degrees, and as it got deeper, observed that the tail of each worm 

 became longer. These tails, which at first were only two inches long, 

 at last attained to five." 



Description of the Mallota Larva. 

 The examples received by me about the middle of January were 

 sordid white or flesh-color, with a body of an oval form, about three- 

 eighths of an inch in length by about one-fourth of an inch when at 

 rest, and about twice as long and of a diminished diameter when in 

 motion. From the narrower end a tail-like projection is given out, an 

 inch in length, which is slightly tapering and transversely wrinkled 

 for two-thirds of its length ; the remainder being a black, cylindrical, 

 bristle-like process, which is susceptible of projection from, or contrac- 



