Insect Life on the Western Arctic Coast of America UK 



kept to the south side of the house where the thermometer, hanging free, showed 

 40 degrees F. at 2 p.m.; on the refuse heaps outside the house the two smaller 

 species (Fucellia ariciiformis and Scatella brunnipennis) were common- all of 

 them were very much alive. 



Early in May owing to the snow and hibernation period the tundra provided 

 poor results in insects, but a few days later, better results were obtained. Under 

 driftwood many collembola of different sizes, white, orange, and violet were 

 found, and various small spiders, with egg cocoons of spiders and mites. The 

 small fly, Scatella brunnipennis favoured specially the driftwood on moist, sandy 

 ground; carabid beetles were seen, and young hemiptera (Chiloxanthes stellatus) 

 coloured as dead grass and difficult to catch, as were some smaller flies with a 

 similar habitat. 



Muscid larvae (Rhamphomyia sp.), orange or green sawfly pupae (Amaurone- 

 matus cogitatus), in transparent pupating cocoons in a special little cell communi- 

 cating with the air, various beetle larvae or pupae, and small staphylinid and 

 carabid beetles, etc., were found in snow-free moss-pillows; and, on the tundra 

 plants, the hairy larvae of all sizes, and cocoons vvith larvae or pupae of the moth 

 Gynaephora rossi and probably, also, of Hyphoraia alpina. Sometimes these 

 cocoons contain only the larvae or pupae skins or eggs (on the outside) from 

 previous years, or the pupae cases of the parasitic tachinid fly, (Euphorocera 

 gelida). Spiders and leaf hoppers (Chiloxanthes) are common in the grass. 



A small lepidopterous larva is also seen. It has a brown colour, but is paler 

 on the ventral side; it has a chitinous-brown head and neckband and dark 

 thoracic feet. It spins two willow leaves together and skeletonizes them, remain- 

 ing inside where the larvae evidently hibernate. 



In the now completely melted tundra ponds are smaller, long-legged flies 

 (Hydrophorus f) and a number of different collembola (Podura aquatica, Isotoma 

 palustris, etc.) which are of three sizes. The smallest and most common are black- 

 blue; some, a little larger are grey-brown, and a few the largest are green. 

 Smaller dytiscid beetles (Agabus nigripalpis, Hydroporus humeralis, H. tar- 

 taricus) are busily investigating the mud. Tiny, dark red water-mites move 

 rapidly around in the water, propelled by their hairy legs, and searching for their 

 prey, of which the brownish midge larvae (Tanypus sp.?) which wriggle along 

 near the surface are probably the most important. Crawling on the muddy 

 bottom are other somewhat larger watermites with tile-red body and dark 

 purple legs; and dark coloured midge larvae inside mud tubes. Most conspicuous 

 are the big dipterous larvae (tipulids, etc.); one species (Stygeropis sp.) keeps 

 its long, hairy, anal processes surrounding the spiracles spread out at the surface 

 and floats thus in the water; or it wriggles along over the mud bottom, with the 

 "fan" closed; another species digs, with its head and lateral "legs" conspicuous 

 furrows (tunnels) in the mud, the larvae when working being completely hidden 

 at one end of the furrow. Other larvae, found dead, perhaps belong to the genus 

 Tipula. 



The temperature of the pond mud at 5 p.m., May 21, 1914, at Demarcation 

 point, was 55.5 degrees, or 15.5 degrees warmer than the 1 atmosphere. The 

 ponds, though sometimes free of ice in early May, occasionally freeze over again, 

 but this appears to have no effect on the aquatic animals, though alternating 

 freezing and melting may continue until June. 



End of May, 22-31 



Insect life during this period is very similar to that observed in the few pre- 

 ceding and following days. The weather was cold and hazy or rainy, and not 

 favourable to rapid development of insect life. Some plants get new leaves 

 about the beginning of May and most of them by the end of May, so that, 

 apart from predacious and carrion-feeding forms, the insects found in May are 

 only larvae or pupae, the imagines first appearing when the flowers come out in 

 June. 



