April 1884.] 



PSl'CIIE. 



15'J 



tVii- its accomplislinient. And if so but beg you to remember that if not 

 undertaken .and carried out, it shordd be felicitous of speech I am constant (jf 



a worlv which couLl he pointed at with 

 pride. I would fain see this chil) the 

 author of it. 



I would gladlv have contributed to 

 voru' nieetiu" a more worthy adtlress, 



heart, and shall ever wisli you prosper- 

 ity' and good fellowship in your future. 



Respectfully, 



B: Pick man Mann. 



SEXUAL ATTR.VCTION IN PRIOXUS. 



BY ANNA KATHERINA DIM 



Late in the summer of 1SS3 my atten- 

 tion was drawn to the sudilen appear- 

 ance of a large number of holes in the 

 garden, which, upon closer observation, 

 proved to he the exits of numerous 

 beetles of tlie genus Prionits. Having 

 heard that the attraction of the male by 

 the feiiiale was not common among co- 

 leoptera, and finding no notice of such 

 attraction in' the above-mentioned cole- 

 optera, I captui'ed a large female which 

 was fount! in the grass with oviposi- 

 tor distended and greatly protruded. 

 Scarcely had the feniale been secured 

 before a male Prioniis appeared ; he 

 ran and flew, by alternation, meanwhile 

 , rapitllv palpitating his antennae, about 

 and around the tent, inside of which the 

 female had been confined ; finally, dis- 

 covering the entrance to the tent, he flew 

 in and lit directly on the screen under 

 which the feniale had been put. After 

 the appearance of the first male another 

 was seen to approach the tent. He 

 went through a similar performance to 

 that of the first one, finally alighting on 

 the cage. In this manner a great man)' 

 male specimens of Priotius were taken 

 in the course"of an afternoon. On ac- 

 count of the presence of so many males 



MOCK, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



a number of females made their appear- 

 ance, showing an attraction of the 

 female to the male like that above-noted 

 of males attracted by females. Instances 

 similar to those just described, that is, 

 of male insects attractetl by females of 

 the same species, ha\e been frequently 

 recorded in lepidoptera, especially 

 among the bombycidae; but among the 

 coleoptera such cases are, I think, more 

 rarely met with, the only instance to my 

 knowledge being the one originally 

 mentioned by Prof. F. H. Snow,'' and 

 quoted by Mr. J. A. Lintner.^ Prof. 

 Snow found males of Polvpliylla vario- 

 losa vigorously scratching the ground 

 above places where females were about 

 to emerge, presumably guided to these 

 places, as Mr. Lintner suggests, by the 

 sense of smell, rather than, as Prof. 

 Snow supposed, by that of hearing. 



The most remarkable pai't of the sex- 

 ual attraction manifested by Prioiius is 

 that of the females being attracted by the 

 males, a kind of attraction concerning 

 which I have founil no notice whatever. 

 2 Mar. iSS-f. 



• Trans. Kans. .icad. sci., 1S74, p. 27-2S. 



2 Lintner, ist ann. rept. insects N". Y., 1SS2 [1SS3], p. 71. 



