Jan., '04] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. I5 



tumbling over one another in fruitless efforts to climb the 

 smooth walls, which sometimes bore evidence that a strong- 

 jawed victim had vainly endeavored to eat his way out through 

 the leaf. 



Below the dead and dying captives of recent date are usually 

 several inches of insect remains, the upper portion of the mass 

 dry and showing little trace of the action of the liquid secre- 

 tion of the plant. Only one butterfly, Pyrameis cardui, was 

 recognized ; but moths in great numbers and variety make up 

 a large portion of the mass. Catocala paleogama, a small 

 sphinx-moth and many Noctuidae of smaller size were noted. 

 Of other orders Coleoptera probably predominated, the upper 

 portion of the mass containing many entire beetles and the 

 lower portion being well studded with the horny legs and 

 elytra of others more completely digested. Hymenoptera, 

 Diptera and Orthoptera were all well represented, the latter 

 order by a large green katydid and several specimens of Dis- 

 sosteira car9li?ta, with other smaller species. 



Further down in the tube the remains become more and 

 more fragmentary, the lower portion consisting of a gray, 

 vile-smelling, semi-liquid mass of decaying material, with only 

 here and there a trace of the hardest part of some insect ; and 

 here almost invariably are to be found one or more larvae of 

 the fly, Sarcophaga sarracenice, which Riley described in 1874 

 from specimens bred from Sarracenia variolaris. 



If we walk through a clump of S. flava and bend up the 

 hoods or covers as we pass, here and there we will find, sitting 

 with folded wings in the pitchers, one, sometimes a pair of 

 little moths. Attempting to frighten them out, they respond 

 by backing further into the tube, which may be carried about 

 almost indefinitely and handled very roughly before the little 

 moth can be persuaded to leave its shelter. Once dislodged it 

 flies quickly to another pitcher, alights outside near the rim, 

 and runs in over the edge. A collection of these little moths 

 from S. fiava shows them to be of at least three species. The 

 largest and most abundant of these, Exyra riding sii (Plate 

 IV), was described by Riley in 1874 from specimens cap- 

 tured- in Alabaraar It varies much in the proportion of black 



