4^6 Bulletin American Musett-m of Natural History. [Vol. XXII, 



upward of a dozen, and these easily find their way to the bottom, 

 where they feed on the softer parts of the macerating insects which 

 have accumulated there. As a rule but one of the Sarcophaga larvse 

 matures, the others having fallen victims to its gluttony and superior 

 strength. When full fed, or rather when it has appropriated all the 

 nourishment at hand, this maggot works through the tube (by this 

 time weakened and decayed at the base) and burrows in the ground, 

 where it undergoes its transformations, and whence in a week or more, 

 according to the season, the fly emerges. " 



A few years ago Dr. J. B. Smith discovered another dipterous 

 insect, a mosquito (Wyeomyia smithii) whose larval and pupal stages 

 develop in the liquid of the pitchers of 5. purpurea.^ Mr. Daecke 

 writes me that he has found the Wyeomyia larvee near Bamber 

 Station, New Jersey, in pitchers in which so many Cremasto- 

 gasters had been drowned, that he "wondered how they could exist, 

 since the water must have been laden with formic acid. " According 

 to Dr. Smith these larvae do not need to come to the surface of the 

 liquid to breathe, like the larvee of Culex, and even lived "for nearly 

 two weeks under a film of oil which covered the surface of their 

 breeding jar." He also finds that this insect winters in the Sarra- 

 cenia pitchers "in the larval stage, freezing and thawing as often as 

 need be during that season. It pupates late in May and becomes 

 adult a week or ten days later. Eggs are laid in the leaves singly 

 or in small groups; fastened to the sides or floating on the surface. 

 The summer broods mature in about a month, and there are probably 

 three if not four series; but the broods overlap so much that the 

 breeding is practically continuous. Late in the season the adults 

 select the new leaves for oviposition even if they are yet dry. " ^ 



It is evident that if the ants had sufficient intelligence to gnaw 

 holes in the walls of the pitchers, they could not only enter and leave 

 these organs at will, but also visit the nectaries and perhaps secure 

 plenty of insect food with impunity. Although Cremastogaster has 

 not yet developed this ability, there is no reason to suppose that it 

 may not do so in the course of time. I am led to entertain this possi- 



' Ent. News, XXII. igo;, pp. i8q, 254; Life History of Aedes smithii Coq., Journ. N. Y. Ent. 

 Soc, X. 1902, pp. 10-15; see also for a description of the larva: H. G. Dyar, Descriptions of the 

 Larvae of Three Mosquitoes. Journal of the N. Y. Ent. Soc, IX, 1901, pp. 177-179, pi. x, figs. 1-2. 



2 The above mentioned insects are by no means the only ones that can live in the Sarracenia 

 pitchers. While examining the plants sent me by Miss Marble I fotmd, in addition to the Wyeomyia 

 two other fly larvfe that manage to thrive and develop in the digesting insect remains at the bottom 

 of the pitchers. One of these was a Chironomus larva, present in considerable numbers in several of 

 the pitchers, the other was apparently a Tipulid larva, of which only a single individual was seen. 



