Notes on the Commoner Species 1 73 



about only when disturbed. When they rise to the 

 top to pupate, air is disengaged from the breathing 

 tube. They ascend a short time before pupation and 

 then keep the tube at the surface, with the body 

 nearly parallel to the latter, in marked contrast to 

 the feeding posture. They are noticeable for their 

 enormous, S-shaped antennae. 



Grabhamia jamaicensis. — This, too, is a breeder 

 in pools in the open, from which it never flies far 

 (Fig. 8, a, page 46). It is found from New Jersey to 

 Louisiana. This species does not enter the house. 

 It seems to prefer the pools just at the edge of 

 the woods, but used to get into the tubs on the 

 campus with restuans and pipicns, and also in wood 

 pools with sylvestris, posticata, and varipes. It 

 also propagated in the drains on the campus, and not 

 always in the cleanest of water, though I never found 

 the larvae in positively foul fluid. The wigglers keep 

 the body almost, not quite, parallel to the surface 

 while feeding, but it forms a downward curve in the 

 middle, like a slack rope. They go sailing about, 

 frequently backward, by means of the mouth brushes. 

 Adults were taken from June 7 to September 30; 

 in the north they are most abundant in midsummer. 

 The insect bit from once to three times, often twice, 

 before laying the first batch of single eggs, which 

 is deposited from four to eight days after the first 

 meal. There are from one to five batches, generally 

 three, with forty-one to eighty-one ova in a clutch. 

 Dr. Smith and Prof. Herrick think the eggs are de- 

 posited in moist mud ; we could induce oviposition 

 on nothing but water. The eggs will resist drying, 



