THE CRANE-FLIES oF NEw York — Part II 847 
Epiphragma fascipennis 1s a very common crane-fly thruout eastern 
North America. As already stated, the immature stages are spent in 
decaying or partly sound wood, a wide variety of deciduous trees and 
shrubs being chosen, such as willow, elm, ash, buttonbush, and others. 
Needham gives the pupal duration as about twelve days, larvae and 
pupae found on May 18 emerging as adults on the 30th. A fully grown 
larva that the writer found in a decayed log beneath moss at Ithaca, 
New York, on May 8, 1917, pupated early in the morning of the 10th. 
The specimen died on the 18th, when about to emerge, and this would 
give a much shorter pupal period than is generally recorded for the genus. 
It was noted at the same time that the larva superficially resembles the 
larva of the leptid fly Chrysopila thoracica (Fabr.), with which it was 
associated but from which it is easily distinguished by its massive head 
capsule. 
Needham found abundant pupae in a decaying log of black ash (Fraxinus) 
near Freeville, New York, on May 6, 1915. The pupae occurred in bur- 
rows in the semi-decayed wood. Adults emerged on the 11th. Additional 
material was found at Mud Creek, near Freeville, on May 15, 1915, in 
elm (Ulmus). 
The account of the habits of the larvae as observed in Illinois by 
Needham (1903: 281-285) is here quoted in part: 
The larvae bore in the dead and fallen stems of buttonbush and willow, where these lie 
on the mud at the borders of shallow ponds. I found them always in stems that were still 
partially sound, tunneling beneath the bark or even into the deeper parts and into the 
sounder wood. These stems are frequently submerged in spring and autumn, and even 
in summer, when the pond has gone dry, they are always saturated with moisture. 5 
The most interesting thing about the larva, aside from its wood-boring habits, is its singular 
adaptation to amphibian life. It must needs live part of the time wholly submerged beneath - 
the waters of the pond, and part of the time out on land; it has, therefore, both open spiracles 
and tracheal gills; and, moreover, its tracheal gills are so placed that they may be with- 
drawn into the body in a dry time, where they escape the ills of too rapid evaporation. 
In his description of the immature stages, Needham points out a 
probable error of Beling in describing a sexual dimorphism in the larvae 
of a species of this genus — Beling stating that the larvae producing 
females have three caudal lobes while those producing males have five. 
Malloch (1915-17 b: 224-225) cites Needham’s descriptions of this species. 
Larva.— (No larvae are available to the writer for a comparison with this stage of 
Epiphragma solatriz, but from Needham’s characterization, and manuscript notes on speci- 
mens taker at Ithaca, New York, by the writer, the following differences seem to hold): 
