April 1893.] 



PS T CHE. 



435 



SOME NOTES ON THE EARLY STAGES, ESPECIALLY THE 

 CHRYSALIS, OF A FEW AMERICAN SPHINGIDAE. 



BY SAMUEL H. SCUDDER. 



The subjoined descriptions are wholly 

 from notes taken twenty or thirty years 

 ago, and complement in part the larval 

 descriptions given in B. P. Mann's 

 paper in the second volume of Psyche. 



MACROSILA CAROLINA. 



Egg. Round, very light green, and per- 

 fectly smooth so far as can be seen with an 

 ordinary lens. They are laid singly, and 

 rarely more than one is found upon the same 

 plant. 



Caterpillar. (See Psyche, v. 2, p. 73-75, 

 for description of the larva, drawn up at the 

 same time.) 



Chrysalis. Dark reddish brown with a slight 

 dark olivaceous tint on the wings, the edges 

 of the segments darker than the middle; 

 spiracles and tongue black. The body is 

 deeply hollowed at the metathorax on either 

 side of the centre, somewhat constricted at 

 the prothorax, and has a central depressed 

 line and a pit on either side of it upon the 

 front of the fifth and sixth abdominal seg- 

 ments. Metathorax and hind wings not very 

 conspicuous, the former with a transverse 

 backward directed ridge. The tongue is 

 free except at its bulbous tip, shorter than in 

 M. quinquemaculata, and slightly incurved 

 on its downward trend; its extreme tip is 

 placed at one-third the distance from the 

 head to the tip of the body and halfway 

 between the front of the head and the tip of 

 the wings, while in M. quinquemaculata it is 

 at half that distance. The hind legs reach 

 the tip or nearly the tip of the wings which 

 extend over four abdominal segments. 

 Before the spiracles on the 5th-7th abdon i- 

 nal segments there is a slit five or six times 



as long as the spiracles, the posterior edge 

 raised and lipped, and the top ridged above, 

 the whole being black, and undoubtedly 

 serving for the movement of the pupa in 

 reaching again the surface of the ground; 

 precisely the same thing occurs in other 

 species of Macrosila. The head, thorax, and 

 appendages are quite smooth, being only 

 faintly wrinkled, except the tongue which is 

 roughly wrinkled; the abdominal segments 

 are profusely punctate anteriorly, punctate 

 or rather pitted and wrinkled in the centre 

 and, at least on the 4th-7th segments, very 

 minutely and delicately punctate posteriorly ; 

 the last two segments are very deeply erose ; 

 the cremaster obtusely conical, tranversely 

 compressed, having two short points with 

 their inner edges diverging, but their outer 

 edges nearly parallel. Length 50 mm. ; 

 breadth 14 mm. 



Some caterpillars which went under 

 ground about August 27 had not 

 changed on September 5, but changed 

 within eight days thereafter. They 

 seldom bury themselves more than 

 three or four inches, and make an un- 

 derground cavern with sides of packed 

 earth. 



SPHINX C1XEREA. 



Chrysalis. Mahogany brown, edges o 

 segments slightly darker. Body a little hol- 

 lowed on either side of the metathorax and 

 slightly constricted at the prothorax. Meta- 

 thoracic wings visible down to the spiracle 

 of third abdominal segment. Tongue de- 

 tached, heavily wrinkled, carried along the 

 front nearly parallel to the breast, the tip not 



