Rau — Longevity in Saturniid Moths. 



TELEA POLYPHEMUS. 



In 1911 observations were made on 19 moths of this 

 species from St. Louis. These all remained unmated. 

 The females exceeded the males in length of life by almost 

 4 days. This year we have material of this species in 

 larger numbers and from four localities, St. Louis, New 

 York, Augusta, Ga., and Fall Eiver, Mass. So much sim- 

 ilarity exists in these that it will be well to present the 

 four tables together for ready comparison. (See Tables 

 4, 5, 6 and 7.) 



It is to be regretted that the Polyphemus material 

 from every locality could not be induced to mate in suffi- 

 cient numbers to be of any value. Every precaution was 

 taken to offer them one or many mates of various ages, 

 but despite this we succeeded in getting longevity data 

 on only 9 mated moths out of a total of 718 insects. 



The cocoons were in all cases shipped to St. Louis dur- 

 ing the winter months. The St. Louis, New York and 

 Massachusetts lots were kept out of doors exposed to 

 the normal weather conditions of St. Louis until almost 

 the time when they were expected to emerge. The Geor- 

 gia cocoons were allowed to remain in the house, in an 

 upstairs room of varying temperature but unheated for 

 the most part. 



Some variation occurred in the dates of emergence of 

 the different lots. Those from St. Louis emerged be- 

 tween April 24 and May 15 ; those from New York, May 

 17-30; from Georgia, May 2-June 28, and from Massa- 

 chusetts, May 1-June 25. We shall not presume here to 

 explain the causes of these differences, but we shall only 

 say that they must carry some significance in showing 

 that the date of emergence is not wholly dependent upon 

 environmental conditions at the time of emerging, for 

 these four lots were all under the same conditions at that 

 time, but that the larval conditions must in some way 



