158 



Forty-fifth Report on the State Museum. 



are recorded by Mr. Weed in the article cited, which probably are 

 identical with those which would be displayed by O. pectinicomis : 



Their ordinary mode of locomotion is by crawling along weeds and 

 the debris of various kinds which gathers at the bottom of ponds, but 

 when alarmed they can swim rapidly by suddenly doubling the body up, 

 bringing the head in contact with the abdomen, by which means they 

 are propelled some distance through the water. They evidently live 

 upon various animals, as I have seen them feeding on dead back- 

 swimmers (JVotonecta undulata), flies which had fallen into the aqua- 

 rium, and in one case a spider which I had thrown in. When a 

 Notonecta or Zaitha would come near the Chauliodes while feeding, the 

 latter would snap viciously at it with its powerful jaws. * * * 

 When handled, the Chauliodes larvse occasionally eject from the mouth 

 a considerable quantity of a blackish fluid, reminding one of a similar 

 habit of certain locusts (Acrididce). These larvae have also a peculiar 

 habit of walking on the surface of the water, body downward. They 

 can move along in this manner quite rapidly. 



C. rastricomis was for a long time thought to be confined to the 

 Southern States, but it appears to be not an uncommon species in Ohio, 

 as Prof. Weed records the capture of at least a dozen species in the 



Fig. 15 —The comb-horned fish-fly, Chauliodes fectinicornis, in natural size (original). 



year 1889, in that State. Mr. Samuel Henshaw has taken the insect 

 in June, presumably in Boston or its vicinity, and Dr. Hagen has 

 received it from Milton, Mass., and also from Illinois. 



The Winged Insect. 

 In its perfect stage, Chauliodes pectiriicornis resembles in general 

 appearance the horned Corydalis, C. comuta — a much more com- 

 mon insect, and with which most persons are more familiar. Its more 

 striking differences are a smaller size, a less robust build, the wingt 

 not so strongly veined, its mandibles much shorter and projecting bus 

 little beyond the front of the head, the antennae with long pectinations 

 like the teeth of a comb, in both sexes, the front wings without the 

 small round white spots within the cells, seen in Corydalis, and with 

 the brown veins interrupted with white. 



