ASSEMBLING. 



357 



Concerning the assembling process in the Bombycidae, the 

 late Prof. C. Y. Riley wrote as follows: <«The power of 

 assembling among certain moths, for instance, especially 

 those of the family Bombycidse, is well known to entomolo- 

 gists, and many remarkable instances are recorded. . . . 

 Now, in the moths of this family the male antennae are elab- 

 orately pectinate, the pectinations broad and each branch 

 minutely hairy. These feelers vibrate incessantly, while in 

 the female, in which the feelers are less complex, there is a 

 similar movement connected with an intense vibration of the 

 whole body and of the wings. There is, therefore, every 

 reason to believe that the sense is in some way a vibratory 

 sense, as, indeed, at base is true of all senses ; and no one 

 can study the wonderfully diversified structure of the an- 

 tennsBin insects, especially in males, as very well exemplified 

 in some of the commoner gnats, without feeling that they 

 have been developed in obedience to, and as a result of, 

 some such subtle and intuitive power, as this of telepathy. 

 Every minute ramification of the wonderfully delicate feelers 

 of the male mosquito, in all probability, pulsates in response 

 to the piping sounds which the female is known to produce, 

 and doubtless through considerable distance " (''Insect Life," 

 Vol. VII, page 39). 



In view of the fact that the males of the gypsy moth will 

 assemble nearly as readily to empty boxes, bags, etc., in 

 which females of the species have been previously confined, 

 as to the females themselves, we are led to believe that with 

 this insect, at least, the process is one depending upon the 

 sense of smell alone.* 



On Trapping Males. 



The following experiments were made under my direction 

 by Mr. H. N. Reid in 1893, for the purpose of determining 

 whether it is possible to trap the males of the gypsy moth, 

 in any infested region, to such an extent that there would not 

 be enough left to mate with any considerable number of 

 females, so that a large proportion of the females would be 

 compelled to lay infertile eggs, and therefore greatly reduce 



* In one case males were found to visit an empty pasteboard box which had con- 

 tained female moths three days before. 



