Januarj- — February iSSS.] 



PSYCHE. 



13 



f^sychch:. 



CAMBRIDGE, MASS., JAN.-FEB. iSSS. 



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EDITORIAL NOTE. 



Unavoidable hindrances have so delayed 

 the issue of volume four of Psyche that its 

 publishers deemed it best to begin volume 

 five with the year 1888, omitting the years 

 1886 and 1887. Volume five w^ill include the 

 years 1888 to 1890. The concluding portion 

 oi volume four is now partly printed, but 

 will still require considerable time for com- 

 pletion, on account of the expensive index 

 which will accompany it. 



drying, and I have never noticed a crack in 

 this place in the living P. folyccrator, al- 

 tho I have collected a great number of 

 them. 



C; W: Woodv.'orth. 



NOTE ON PELECINUS POLYCERATOR. 



In examining a considerable collection of 

 Pelecinus folycerator I noticed that every 

 specimen had the enlarged first segment of 

 the abdomen split longitudinally on the 

 back, on or near the median line. The split 

 is sometimes a mere crack, sometimes a wide 

 gap, and in the latter case is often somewhat 

 torn at the ends. 



This splitting has often been noticed by 

 others, but I know of no published account 

 of it. It has been suggested that it had 

 some relation to the remarkable scarcity of 

 the male in this species, but the more prob- 

 able explanation seems to be in the warping 

 caused in drying. Every collector knov/s 

 how the parts of the ovipositor of the long- 

 tailed ichneumon-flies (^Pimpla) warp in 



FEEDING HABITS OF A LYCAENID 

 CATERPILLAR. 



Last spring Mr. Lintner kindly guided me 

 to his happy hunting grounds at Centre, 

 near Albany, N. Y., where for the first time 

 I had the pleasure of making the personal 

 acquaintance of my namesake, Rusticns scud- 

 derii. I succeeded in obtaining from fe- 

 males enclosed on lupines a large number 

 of eggs and in rearing many caterpillars to 

 maturity. 



The caterpillar has a very extensile head 

 and flexible neck, as figured for L. pseudar- 

 giolus by Mr. W. H. Edwards, and its man- 

 ner of feeding immediately after birth is 

 rather remarkable ; it first pierces the lower 

 cuticle of the leaf, making a hole just large 

 enough to introduce its minute head, and 

 then devours all the interior of the leaf as far 

 as it can reach — many times the diameter of 

 the entrance-hole — so that when the cater- 

 pillar goes elsewhere, the leaf looks as if 

 marked with a circular blister or pustule, 

 having a central nucleus, the nearly color- 

 less membranes of the leaf being all that is 

 left at the blister, and at the central entrance 

 to it the upper membrane only. The blister 

 is 1.75 mm. in diameter, and the nucleus-like 

 opening to it only abouto.25 mm. in diam- 

 eter. 



In later life the caterpillar feeds on both 

 surfaces, though it still seems to prefer the 

 under, but eats entirely through the cuticle 

 of the surface on which it feeds, and down to 

 the opposite cuticle which it leaves un- 

 touched. It retains, also, to some degree, 

 its habit of thrusting its head between the 

 cuticles to get at the juicier parts ; and I have 

 seen one bore out the cut end of a stem down 

 to the rind on every side. 



Samuel H. Scudder. 



