38 



tomological visitor. The structural peculiarities of the larva and pupH 

 of Eumacus iiave been discussed by Mr. Samuel II. Scndder,* but he 

 hardly refers to the life history of the species. Another description 

 of the earlier stages seems to be given by F. Poey in liis work on the 

 Lcpidoptera of Cuba, but I have not been able to consult the work. 

 It is not quoted by Scudder but may contain a full account of the life 

 history of Eumacus. At any rate, even if duplicated, it will do no harm 

 to place on record the following short observations made independently 

 last year during a stay at Cocoanut Grove, Dade County, Fla. 



Fig. C. Ei'MAFA'S ATALA: 1, eggs in situ— natural size; 2, 3 ogga— enlarged ; 4, larva; 5, pnpa; C 

 adnlt from above ; 7, adult from side— all natural size (original). 



The species is so frequent and so tame in the piue woods between the 

 shores of liiscayne Bay and the Everglades that it is the easiest thing 

 ill the world to gather some observations on its natural history. Its 

 only food-plant in Florida is Zamia integrifoUa of the family Cycadacea, 

 a plant which is not unlike a large fern and whose original homo is 

 the West Indies. That this plant is of considerable economic value 

 wherever it occurs in abundance is a well-known fact, but it may not 

 be generally known that it furnishes almost the only means of subsist- 

 ence of tlie present population of the shores of I>iscayne I>ay and of 

 the mainland southward thereof. Tiie subterranean stem of the plant, 

 when ground up by means of very simple and cheap machinery, fur- 



* Tlio structure and transformatioa of Eumneits atala. Memoirs Boston Soc. Nat- 

 Hist., vol. ii, pt. iv, No. iii, IHT.'S, p. 413-411), pi. xiv. 



