S6 Bulletin No. 159 



men above black, posterior margin of segments edged with 

 gray. Ventral sides of segments two and three light red- 

 dish gray, the rest blackish with gray posterior margins. 



The female is described by the same writer as from 2.5 

 to 3 mm. long; the head slate-blue, with silvery pubescence; 

 the thorax, slate-blue, with three longitudinal lines, the 

 median narrow and widening at the apex, the outer curving 

 in at the base and out at the apex; beneath slate-blue; abdo- 

 men with last five segments dark blue above; segments 2, 3 

 and 4 each, with a black cross bar; segments 5, 6 and 7, with 

 two submedian stripes, disappearing on 7; bluish white 

 everywhere beneath; legs brownish black. 



Simulium reptans. 



As already stated, this common European species has 

 been recorded from Greenland, and may yet be found on 

 this continent. It is described as black, the female with a 

 white spot on each side of the thorax, the sides of the thorax 

 silvery. 



The name S. reptans has many synonyms, due appar- 

 ently to the insect being somewhat variable. It would seem 

 to be a near ally of our Kentucky insect, S. venustum. 

 Simulium columbaczensis, on the other hand, notorious 

 because of its injuries to cattle in Hungary and other coun- 

 tries of the same general region, is apparently the European 

 analog of our buffalo gnat. 



CHIRONOMID/E (GNATS). 



With the Simulium pupae I took from submerged wood 

 and other objects in Straight Creek and Cumberland River a 

 number of singular cases which may perhaps be mistaken 

 for the pupa cases of Simulium. They are produced by a 

 slender larva, which is sometimes secured with its head 

 out of the case, as shown in Figure 9. It is the young 

 of one of the gnats belonging to the family Chironomidag, a 

 group represented in ponds and lakes by blood-red larvae 

 living free or within transient tubes of loose granular 

 material secured to the surfaces of stones. The group is 



