202 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [May, 'l/ 



and flowers, and vivifies all the reproductive powers of nature, 

 in which Gcrris is not the least factor. 



That great American naturalist, Thomas Say, who, finding 

 himself in a new Paradise, like Father Adam of old, spent his 

 days busily giving names to the theretofore nameless multi- 

 tude of living things which delighted his eye, was the first to 

 recognize Gcrris remigis as distinct from the European G. 

 palndum Fabricius, describing it in 1832. Since his day other 

 entomologists have referred to his species more or less at 

 length, among them Packard, Comstock, Uhler (who has giv- 

 en by far the best account of the insect in the Standard Na- 

 tural History), and Howard, till we come to the present, when 

 it has been the subject of many short articles and studies. Uh- 

 ler has been heretofore the source of most of our information 

 on this species and in the work mentioned he briefly describes 

 its habits. The scantiness of information about the life and 

 habits of Gerris remigis and of the other nearly-related forms 

 led. me to try to work out a life-history by breeding the spe- 

 cies in aquaria. This was begun some nine or ten years ago 

 and brought to a partial close in 1908, when, after some trou- 

 ble, a single specimen was brought through to maturity. 



In nature the life-history of Gerris remigis appears to be 

 briefly this : Breeding and oviposition begin as early as Feb- 

 ruary, or in the first warm days of spring. (I have found 

 them mating in early April, while one still slept under a stone.) 

 It is seemingly continuous all through the summer, and it is 

 not unusual to find nymphs in various stages in company with 

 the adults. I have found them thus in late May and as late 

 as the middle of October, nymphs in two or three stages be- 

 ing together. The mother lays her cylindrical pearly eggs end 

 to end along the edges of grasses or other vegetation growing 

 into the water, to which she attaches them by means of a col- 

 orless waterproof glue. Here they develop more or less quick- 

 ly, according to the temperature, the little bugs showing day by 

 day more and more plainly through the shell. At the end of a 

 week or ten days they burst the shell and escape into the water. 

 The little bugs remain submerged for an hour or two, swim- 

 ming about, until finally they succeed in piercing the surface 



