252 PARASITES OF GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. 



mined by Mr. E. A. Schwarz as Anthrenus varius Fab. and Trogo- 

 derma tar sale Melsh. The Trogo derma was the more common of the 

 two. Later, in the fall, another collection of old cocoons was made 

 for the purpose of determining the status of these beetles. It was 

 found that both of them fed, as larva?, upon the eggs of the tussock 

 moth, and when they were confined in vials with eggs of the gipsy 

 moth they fed not only upon the hairy covering of the egg masses, 

 but also upon the eggs themselves. Larva? apparently of one of these 

 species have several times been received at the laboratory associated 

 with egg masses of the gipsy moth, which were in each instance col- 

 lected upon the sides of buildings or in other situations different from 

 those under which egg masses are most frequently encountered. 



As soon as the gipsy-moth caterpillars hatch, if, as frequently hap- 

 pens, the egg mass is situated in some particularly well-sheltered spot, 

 the young caterpillars are liable to attack by small carabid beetles, 

 several species of which have been found under burlap bands in the 

 spring apparently feeding upon the gipsy-moth caterpillars in this 

 stage. Several of these species were made the subject of casual study 

 in the summer of 1910, the results of which will be published later. 



The elaterid genus Corymbites, though not generally recognized 

 as predaceous, is undoubtedly more or less addicted to a diet of living 

 insects. An adult of one species was once found feeding upon the 

 cocoons of Apanteles fulvi pes; and the larva of another, upon one occa- 

 sion, at least, upon the pupa? of the gipsy moth. There are many 

 species in the New England States. Some of them are nocturnal, 

 and it is not at all beyond the limits of probability that they may be 

 found listed among the predatory enemies of the gipsy moth and the 

 brown-tail moth when these lists shall have been finally completed. 



Among the coccinellids the large Anatis 15-punctata Oliv. has more 

 than once been observed, as a larva, attacking the small caterpillars 

 of the gipsy moth, and it is not at all unlikely that the species is actu- 

 ally of as much consequence as some of the minor parasites in assist- 

 ing in the control of the pest. 



The lampyrids, too, include amongst their numbers many species 

 which are either occasionally or habitually predatory. One such 

 which abounds in eastern Massachusetts in the spring flying about in 

 the tops of the trees and crawling over the foliage was encountered 

 in the spring of 1910 in the act of destroying a small gipsy-moth 

 caterpillar. Probably one beetle would not destroy many cater- 

 pillars in the course of its life, but there are such swarms of the beetles 

 as to make an average of even one caterpillar count materially in the 

 end. Some of the lampyrids are nocturnal, as in fact are a great many 

 of the proved or probably predatory Coleoptera, and their association 

 with the gipsy moth is not likely to be established unless special effort 

 toward that end is undertaken. Such studies require time and pa- 



