72 



were all the adults secured from the material brought home, the others, 

 as I believe, having been destroyed by the Enipusa previously mentioned. 



The same species was found in abundance in clover fields about 

 Lafayette during the whole of the month of May, eggs being* secured 

 on the 28th from a female taken in the field. We have this year 

 reared adults which appeared June 4. About the 10th of August males 

 began to appear again in great abundance, and both sexes were ob- 

 served on the 15th, and by the 27th they seemed to be in the height of 

 the ovipositing season ; but the females stubbornly refused to oviposit 

 in confinement, and it was only by securing a female while laying her 

 eggs in the field that I secured an additional supply, though I saw a 

 female which had been caught in a spider snare depositing her eggs 

 freely. By the 20th of September the species had nearly disappeared, 

 only spent females being seen, though the present season, near Colum- 

 bus, Ohio, one was observed filled with eggs as late as the 22d. It 

 seems, therefore, that the ovipositing seasons are, as a rule, from about 

 May 1 to June 15 and from about August 10 to September 25, the 

 period covering about six weeks. 



The organs of oviposition in this species are very different from those 

 of the preceding, giving to the posterior segment of the females a very 

 different ajjpearance. Instead of the broad valves we have a pair of 

 chitinous forceps while the lower plates are produced with the pro- 

 longations vertically flattened, and the base forms an elongate recepta- 

 cle. The liguliform plate is less robust and partakes more of a carti- 

 laginous than a chitinous nature, its office evidently being in part sus- 

 tained by the teeth with which the interior basal part of the second pair 

 of plates is provided. The two pair of plates, when not in use, close up 

 and form a slender prolongation of the last abdominal segment. The 

 egg differs from that of the preceding species by being smaller and hav- 

 ing five distinct grooves, presumably allowing the teeth of the lower 

 plates to gain a stronger hold on the egg itself, and thus reenforcing 

 the liguliform plate, which, as in the preceding, seems to fit into the 

 concavity of the egg. The manner of oviposition is as follows : The egg y 

 leaving the oviduct, drops into the second or lower pair of claspers and 

 under the small liguliform piece, the concave side upward. Here it 

 seems to be held in place while the upper organ or plate is drawn back- 

 ward, the lower being at the same time slightly advanced until the two 

 flattened prolongations drop in between the two upper ones, when there 

 is a sharp click and the egg is thrown forth at an angle of probably 40 

 degrees. As with the preceding species, the rapidity of the movement 

 renders it difficult to observe accurately or to determine the exact source 

 of propulsion. The females of this species utterly refuse to oviposit in 

 confinement, and it is only by capturing them in the fields, after they 

 have probably begun oviposition, that one is able to secure eggs. 

 Even here, however, we have not been able to witness undisturbed 

 oviposition, and therefore not able to observe whether or not they use 



