APPENDIX I REPORTS OF OBSERVERS. 375 



lamia convergers). This was on the 26th of August ; the larva was 

 searching the lower surface of a leaf, apparently for aphides, when it encountered an 

 Aletia egg, which it immediately bit with its mandibles ; but, as if disliking its taste, 

 it left the egg uneaten and passed on. Later I saw this same larva bite another 

 egg, and this, too, was left without farther disturbance, but of course both eggs were 

 killed. Though many hours were spent in looking for further attacks upou the eggs 

 of Aletia, the difficulties necessarily attendant npon such observations prevented me 

 from seeing any more. From the actions and known proclivities of the lady-birds 

 known as Kippodamiaconverrjens, H. maculata, Coccinella mnnda, and Coccinclla 9 notata, 

 all of which are found in abundance on cotton-plants, and of Chilocorns binilnerus, one 

 adult of which was seen searching the leaves of the cotton, I suspect that they all 

 destroy these eggs more or less commonly. The larvae (aphis-lions) of the lace-winged 

 flies are also very plentiful on cotton, where they prey upon aphides, and very likely 

 they may also destroy eggs of Aletia. Similarly, ants of quite a number of speciea 

 frequent the cotton-plant, whither they are attracted both by the sweet excretion of 

 aphides and by the nectar copiously secreted by the foliar and involucral glands of 

 the plant ; and, though I never saw them molest the eggs of Aletia, I believe that they 

 do so. 



Wasps frequent the cotton-plant in considerable numbers, being attracted, like the 

 ants, in part by the nectar secreted by the plant ; and there is much reason to believe 

 that all of the species which visit the plant feed more or less commonly on the cater- 

 pillar or larva of Aletia. I am led to this conclusion by the following observations: 

 On the 8th of August, when larvae of the fourth brood of Aletia were very abundant 

 in the swamp cotton, I saw a large red and yellow wasp (Polistes i-cllicosa) hunting 

 for them. Carefully walking round the holes eaten through the leaves by the cater- 

 pillars, she explored their borders with her antennae, as if feeling for the larvae; 

 and each time that she found one in this way she quickly sprang after it, but at the 

 same instant the larva threw itself from the leaf, so that while I was watching her I 

 saw no less than eight escape, the ninth being caught and eaten. Occasionally she 

 would stop hunting long enough to sip a little nectar from the foliar glands of the 

 plant, and then the chase was resumed. I was very much surprised to see that she 

 relied entirely on the tactile sense of her antennae for finding her prey. Though 

 possessing well-developed ocelli aud compound eyes, she seemed to make little use of 

 them, and repeatedly I saw her alight on a leaf close to a caterpillar without pa.ying 

 any attention to him till she touched him with her antennae, when, as before stated, 

 she would instantly spring after it. Observations of this sort were made several 

 times on this wasp. Another rather large brown wasp was also seen to catch larval 

 Aletias, as also were a yeilow-jacket hornet ( Vcspa Carolina) and a common mud-dauber 

 (Pelopaeus caerulcus), and they all alternated hunting for caterpillars with feeding on 

 nectar. Both species of Pollutes were several times seen flying about with dead cater- 

 pillars, having previously reduced them to a pulpy mass with their mandibles. They 

 were probably looking for some quiet place in which to eat them. 



From, their great numbers and indefatigable industry, ants are probably among the 

 most important of the enemies of the cotton caterpillar. Individuals of many species 

 swarm everywhere on the cotton-plants, to which they are attracted night and day by 

 Aphides and nectar. Ou many cotton-leaves there are places where some larva has 

 eaten the parenchyma of the lower surface, but the most careful search fails to discover 

 the larea. Though not invariably so, these places are often eaten by very young larvae 

 of Aletia, and as these are not to be found, it looks as though they had been removed by 

 some enemy, probably ants, though I have never seen ants attack very small caterpil- 

 lars. In July a number of caterpillars were collected in the bottom-land to which they 

 were principally confined at that time, and placed on cotton growing in dry, sandy 

 soil, care being taken to see that there were no ants on this cotton when the larvaj 

 were placed on it, for my insects in breeding-jars in the house had suffered so much 

 from the depredations of ants that I was always afraid of their attacking larvae that I 

 wanted to study in the field ; and these particular caterpillars had been removed to 

 the cotton indicated because I wished to make observations on their habits, and wanted 

 them as near the house as might be, while at that time the only larvae to be found in 

 numbers were about a mile from where I was living. Within two hours of the time of 

 placing them on this cotton, each of these larvae was found by several ants, and 

 these soon collected numbers of their fellows, whose combined attack so worried the 

 larvae that they threw themselves from the plants and were soon killed and carried off 

 by their small but persistent enemies. On several other occasions partly-grown cater- 

 pillars were killed and carried off in this way by this species and a red ant, yet I never 

 saw ants attack them on the plant, excepting when I had thus placed them on ridge- 

 cotton for purposes of study ; but when creeping over the ground, as they do after 

 eating up the foliage of the plant on which they were born, if not full-grown, hundreds 

 of caterpillars were attacked by these ants and killed. I have never seen more than 

 one species of ant attacking any individual caterpillar, either on the plant or on the 

 ground. 



No lepidopterons enemies of Aletia larvae were observed by myself, but Dr. Lockwood, 



