104 



from the surrounding slopes. At the same time, burrowing animals, 

 particularly the crawfish, also bury debris and work over the soil. In 

 the Charleston area this community was developed at Station I, d, and 

 in part at I, g. 



The representative animals of this community are those living in 

 the water, such as the prairie crawfish, Cambarus gracilis (PI. 

 XXXVI). the snail Galba unibilicata, and such insects as the nine- 

 spot dragon-fly, Libcllula pulchella (PI. XXXVIII, fig. 2), and the 

 giant mosquito, Psorophora ciliata, whose immature stages are spent 

 in the water. In addition to these are other representative species 

 whose presence is, to an important degree, conditioned by the pres- 

 ence of certain kinds of vegetation — such species, for example, as 

 those which feed upon the dogbane (Apocynum), the brilliantly col- 

 ored beetle Chrysochus auratus; upon milkweed, the milkweed bugs 

 Lygtriis kahnii and Onco pel tits fascia tits (PI. XL, figs. 1 and 3), and 

 the milkweed beetle Tetraopcs; and. finally, the rather varied series of 

 flower visitors feeding upon pollen or nectar, such as the soldier-beetle 

 (Chaitliognathus pennsylvamcus) > Euphoria scpitlchralis, and several 

 species of butterflies, moths, bees and wasps, including the honey-bee, 

 bumblebees, and carpenter-bee (Xylocopa zirginica), and the common 

 rustv digger-wasp (Chlorion ichncumoneitm) . Visiting the same flow- 

 ers, but of predaceous habit, were found the ambush spider (Misumcna 

 alcatoria) and the ambush bug (Phymata fasciata). Small insects 

 were preyed upon by the dragon-flies ( Libcllula pulchella), and the 

 dragon-flies in turn were entangled in the webs of the garden spider 

 (Argiope aurantia). 



No animals were taken on the flags, but Xeedham ('00) has made 

 an important study of the population inhabitating flags at Lake Forest, 

 Illinois, and shows that it is an extensive one. He gives an excellent 

 example showing how the injury by one insect paves the way for a 

 train or succession of others. For example: the ortalid fly Chcrtopsis 

 cenca Wied. (PI. XVIII, fig. 1), bores into the stem of the buds and 

 causes them to decay (Cf. Forbes, '05, p. 164; Walton, Ent. News, 

 Vol. 19. p. 298. 1908). This condition affords a favorable habitat for 

 a pomace-fly (Drosophila phalcrata Meig.*), an oscinid (Oscinis 

 coxendix Fitch, Plate XVIII, figures 3 and 4), a beetle, parasitic 

 Hxmenoptera, and, after the decaying buds were overgrown by fungus 

 threads, the bibionid fly Scatopse pulicaria Loew. This paper by X T eed- 

 ham is one of the very few in which the population of a plant has been 

 studied as a biotic community. Forbes ('90, pp. 68-69; 02, p. 444) 

 has shown that snout-beetles ( Sphcnophorits ochreus Lee, Plate 



*Mr. J. E. Malloch informs me that D. phalerata is not an American species. 



