REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST 



467 



tyrant of the insect creation." This statement has been referred to in 

 a number of more recent works on entomology, and may be considered 

 the accepted character of the insect. A French writer has observed 

 the same species " eating portions of tishes which had been placed on 

 a sunny bank."* Prof. Davis of the Michigan Agricultural College 

 has recorded a species of Panorpa as " very common in the fields and 

 noticed to attack the cotton-worm."f In response to a special inquiry, 

 Prof. Davis kindly writes: " As to the Panorpa sp. reported by me, can 

 only say that I do not now recall the instance under consideration. 

 What I saw may possibly and quite probably was eating on an injured 

 caterpillar and I felt warranted in classing it with the ones I did." It 

 is possible that Panorpa does attack and kill its own prey, but 

 there appears to be no undoubted proof of this at present, unless the 

 account of Kirby and Spence is credited — it does not seem possible 

 that it could be true of our species, at least. The wounded and dead 

 cotton-worms would readily explain the presence of Pa torpa there, as 

 referred to above. From an economic standpoint, it makes quite a 

 difference whether Pa?ior})a preys upon living, uninjured insects or not. 

 Our species were under close observation, indoors and outside, for six 

 weeks, yet they were not seen to touch a living, uninjured animal of 

 any kind and they were seen a number of times in nature feeding upon 

 partially decayed insects: neither the mandibles or the maxilhe of this 

 insect are well adapted to piercing. This is quite different from the 

 closely allied genus Bittacus, which will touch nothing but living prey, 

 so far as observed, and its mouth parts are well adapted for piercing. 

 The two genera agree in taking very little or no solid food in the 

 imago state. 



Egg-laying Habits. 

 A number of Panorpas were kept in a roomy cage with several pot- 

 ted plants set in moist sand. The sides of the cage were of glass or 

 wire screen and permitted ready observation. At various times in the 

 afternoon females were seen walking slowly about and exploring every 

 crevice in the band with the long, mobile abdomen. Occasionally one 

 would back down into a crevice till nearly out of sight. Frequently 

 these explorations would continue some twenty minutes — the same 

 ground being gone over several times. Finally a female would remain 

 fixed with her abdomen thrust into a crevice. Later investigation 

 usually revealed an irregular mass of yellowish-white eggs one to two 

 centimeters below the surface; twenty-four to tweuty-nine being the 

 number counted in each of several clusters. The ovaries were found to 



* Psyche, vol., iii, 1886, p. 212. 



t In Bull. 15, Ark. Agr. Expt. Station, 1890, p. 10. 



