280 



PSYCHE. 



[August — December 1S89. 



alighted upon the outside of tlie tent was 

 pounced upon by the wasps on the inside, 

 and such objects, mere shadows or stains, 

 were repeatedly attacked by the same wasp 

 over and over again, often with only half a 

 minute's interval or even less than that. 

 I can not now recollect exactly the estimate 

 I made at the time (but failed to record) of 

 the relative number of attacks upon false 

 objects to those upon proper victims, but I 

 am under the impression that the mistakes 

 were to the correct judgments as twenty or 

 thirty to one. My observations were con- 

 tinued for two or three hours and repeated 

 on subsequent days for briefer times, always 

 with an identical result. These observations 

 seem to be entirely in keeping with the 

 forced experiments of Professor Plateau upon 

 the vision of wasps, and lead to the conclu- 

 sion formulated by him that the vision of 

 these insects, even when in flight, is exceed- 

 ingly defective, judged by our own standards. 

 Samuel H. Scudder- 



Second brood of Callosamia prome- 

 THEA. — Last May and June a large number of 

 Callosamia promethea emerged in my house 

 and mated. From these I obtained a brood of 

 larvae some weeks in advance of those to 

 be found out of doors. These pupated in 

 June and July, and, to my surprise, I raised 

 a second small brood of more than a dozen 

 specimens before the 20th of August. Some 

 of these hatched at a normal summer tem- 

 perature, others in the sun, or near a fire. 

 The greater part of them were males. The 

 two sexes paired readily. On the 20th and 

 2ist respectively I found a large inale hover- 

 ing about the cage in which my females were 

 kept. It would be interesting to know whether 

 these free males belonged to another brood 

 or had hatched from cocoons made by es- 

 caped members of the same brood to which my 

 females belonged, as this would go far to- 

 ward settling the question of an occasional 

 second brood under natural conditions in 

 this species. 



The eggs laid by my females began to 

 hatch 4 September and at first ate well and 

 seemed to.be thriving; but by the 28th most 

 of them had succumbed, either to some innate 

 weakness, or to the unusual dampness which 

 caused such mortality amongst larvae during 

 the summer of 1889. 



Holmes H ink ley. 



Notes on Emesa longipes, De Geer. — 

 This interesting insect has been very abun- 

 dant in Central Ohio during the past sum- 

 mer, occurring especially in a row of Norway 

 spruces on the university grounds, where 

 we have collected great numbers by beating. 

 I kept a number alive in the insectary, and 

 obtained many of the eggs, which I believe 

 have never been described. 



Besides the trees above mentioned these 

 bugs were frequently obtained in miscel- 

 laneous beatings in the woods, and occasion- 

 ally occurred in numbers in carriage sheds. 



The only observation upon their feeding 

 habits I am able to record was made by an 

 assistant, Mr. F. W. Rane, who found one 

 in a shed devouring a small while moth, 

 possibly Spilosoma virgitiica, grasping its 

 victim by its strong front legs. 



This Emesa, with its exceedingly long 

 legs and body, and small wings, seems 

 poorly prepared for flying, and as a matter 

 of fact it is very difficult to get one to fly by 

 disturbing it. That they do so voluntarily, 

 however, was shown by their being taken on 

 the wing in the middle of a field. In the 

 Proceedings of the Boston society of natural 

 history v. 14, p. 391, Dr. Hagen states that 

 the eggs are of an elongated, conical form. 



The only other mention of the eggs I have 

 found is the following sentence by Mr. Uhler 

 in the Standard natural history (v. 2, p. 

 277) 1 "We do not 3'et knoAv where it deposits 

 the eggs; but from analogy we are led to 

 believe that these are glued to the twigs of 

 bushes and trees, just as is the case with 

 many others of the great group to which 

 this species belongs." 



