﻿246 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. lOO 



firmly established in New Caledonia. Certainly it would have ideal 

 larval habitats available in the city of Noumea. 



Variation. — T. solomonis is the most variable species of Tripteroides 

 encountered in the Solomon Islands. Yet the general basic mor- 

 phology is strikingly constant in all specimens and is extremely similar 

 to atripes and punctolateralis. 



Twenty-two individual rearings from various larval habitats on 

 Guadalcanal have been thoroughly studied. In the adults the white 

 scaling on the prescutellar area is extremely variable, many specimens 

 showing no light scales at all, others having a conspicuous white area 

 around the "bare space." The light scaling on the supraalar area is 

 quite variable in extent but is always conspicuous. The white scales 

 on the anterior promontory are sometimes reduced. The pleural 

 chaetotaxy is also subject to some variation, in particular the posterior 

 pronotal bristle, which is usually absent but is sometimes weakly de- 

 veloped. The ninth tergite of the male is extremely variable in the 

 shape of the lobes and number of bristles. There appears to be no 

 constant difference between solomonis and punctolateralis and atripes 

 in this sclerite. The larvae show remarkable variation in almost all 

 hairs, and particularly in the head hairs. Edwards (1924), in his 

 original description, states that head hair A is always simple, but 

 that is not the case in our specimens, in which it is usually double or 

 triple and may have as many as five branches. Hairs B and C 

 are frequently 4- or 5-branched but may also be double or triple. The 

 clypeal spines show interesting variation in the presence of a tuft of 

 very fine hairs on the apex, in which case the spines are relatively short ; 

 other specimens have long clypeal spines without the terminal tuft. 

 This character is not associated with any other larval or adult character 

 or larval habitat, nor is it sexual. The basal ventral head hair is 

 peculiar in that it is composed of two separate hairs arising from a 

 common base; the anterior hair may be a single spike or may be de- 

 veloped into a stellate tuft of four or five spikes and it is always long; 

 the posterior hair is considerably shorter and may be extremely re- 

 duced but is usually a small stellate tuft of three or four branches. 

 The leaflets on the apex of the maxilla in some specimens are much 

 more numerous than in others and, in such cases, show practically no 

 serrations. The thoracic chaetotaxy figured by Edwards (1929) 

 differs from that of any specimen seen during the present study. The 

 inner prothoracic stellate tufts in all specimens seen are actually com- 

 posed of two large tufts arising one in back of the other from the same 

 tubercle and there is a short simple hair arising from this tubercle ; 

 the next dorsal tuft laterally always has at least two branches and is 

 never double ; the tubercle of the mesothoracic spine has a large stellate 

 tuft and a simple hair. That the condition shown in Edwards's figure 



