Ko. 4. ] GYPSY MOTH — APPENDIX. 43 1 



had a very punixent odor, and produced a stinging sensation 

 on the skin. Some that struck in the corner of my eye was 

 very painful until the eye was washed with water. The 

 fluid is probably expelled from anal glands, as in the case 

 of the allied genus, Brachynus. Undoubtedly the insectiv- 

 orous birds are the chief agency in checking the increase of 

 these insects, although the terrestrial habits of the beetles 

 render them an easy prey to the ever-watchful toad, while 

 in woodhmds many are probably destroyed by skunks. I 

 have been unable to ol)serve any of our common birds feed- 

 ing upon tliese beetles, yet it seems probable that they may 

 be devoured by the majority of those insectivorous species 

 known to seek a part of their food upon the ground. In 

 this class Gentry * gives the following as feeding upon the 

 Carabida^ : the crow, blue jay, king bird, black-billed 

 cuckoo, yellow-billed cuckoo, hairy woodpecker, downy 

 woodpecker. Forbes records the robin,! cat bird and sev- 

 eral thrushes as attacking Carabidi^, while Beal % states that 

 thirteen per cent of the food of the purple grackle consists 

 of carabids. The same author § notes the occurrence of 

 Calosoma calidum in the stomach of a red-headed wood- 

 pecker, while Schwarz || found that this species is conmionly 

 devoured by the crow. 



One would hardly expect that so ferocious and strongly 

 chitinizcd an insect as C calidum would suffer from the at- 

 tacks of parasites, yet that such is sometimes the case is 

 evident from the fact that on June 6, 1896, I took a speci- 

 men of this species which bore on the side of the prothorax 

 a cluster of nine Dipterous eggs. After keeping the beetle 

 a few days in confinement he became sluggish and finally 

 died June 12. On the 28tli seven flies had emerged, and 

 on opening the beetle the empty puparia were found within. 

 The flies were sent to Prof. L. O. Howard, Washington, D. C. , 

 and were referred to Mr. D. W. Coquillett, who kindly iden- 

 tified them as Pseudotrcetocera calosomce Coq., a species 

 that he has bred in California from Calosoma pei'egrinator. 



* "Birds of Eastern Pennsylvania," 1877- 



t Bulletin 3, Illinois State Laboratory of National Ilistorj-, 1880. 

 J Year Boolv, United States Department of Agriculture, 1894, page 240. 

 ^ Bulletin No. 7, United States Department of Agriculture, DiA-ision of Ornithol- 

 ogy and Mammalogy, page 24, 1895. 

 II " The Common Crow," page 59. 



