Rau—Longevity in Saturnud Moths. 59 
ova produced before they had even hatched from the 
egg, is unusual. Not only the means for the entire lot 
show a low per cent. of fertility, but the records of the 
individuals also show that only 8 out of the 27 females 
were successful in contributing even a fair number of 
living young to the next generation. Nor can we glean 
from these data any evidence that repeated or prolonged 
matings increase the fertility of the egg masses, or that 
somewhat abbreviated mating reduces it. The careful 
search for such evidence revealed the fact that those 
individuals which mated the full time or even twice or 
thrice showed as high a proportion of infertile or non- 
viable ova as the others, while good and bad cases of 
fertility appear also in those females which mated only 
a few hours. This evidence strengthens our belief that 
in this species, as in Cecropia, am amount of sperm suf- 
ficient for the fertilization of the ordinary mass of ova 
enters the seminal receptacle very early in the mating 
period; the ova pass through this male element, and if 
they are capable of fertilization they become fertilized 
by this contact, and those unfit pass out without the 
wherewithal for development, and copulation for a 
greater length of time will have no effect upon these ova 
which are not perfect to receive the spermatozoa. 
TELEA POLYPHEMUS. 
The difficulty of inducing the Polyphemus to mate has 
been explained elsewhere. The data on 10 fertilized 
females from several localities are given below. (See 
Table 33.) 
The 2 insects from Fall River deposited ova of a high 
per cent. of fertility, but the one which mated only 9 
hours was superior in fertility to her sister who spent 
13 hours in copulo. The one female which was taken 
at the light one evening in St. Louis, with history un- 
known, deposited 66 eggs, every one of which was fertile. 
The 6 females from Augusta, Ga., which mated from 12 
