126 
Psyche 
[December 
As the females walked about over the moss in the jars, the 
males mated with them readily. As described by Withycomb, 
1926, (Entomological Monthly Magazine, vol. 62, pp. 81-83) 
for the English species of Boreus, when mating takes place, 
a male runs up beside a female, and hooking his slender 
curved wings over her back, extends the end of his abdomen 
beneath her, and endeavors to lift her off her feet. If she 
does not struggle too strenuously, he usually succeeds in lift- 
ing her across his back, and grasping the parts with his 
genital forceps, he forces down the projecting valves of the 
eighth sternite of the female and inserts the intromittent 
organ into the genital aperture thus exposed. 
As the female becomes quiescent, the male shifts her body 
along his back to the position shown in Figure 1, in which it 
may be seen that the male now holds the female by grasping 
her fore legs near the bases of her front femora by means of 
his wings; and her beak extends downward between his 
wings in the manner shown in the figure. The female is held 
in position at the terminal end by means of the male’s genital 
forceps, or forcipate parameres, which grasp the terminalia 
of the female near the bases of the valves of her eighth ster- 
nite, the tip of the male’s abdomen being turned up over his 
back in order to hold the intromittent organ within the aper- 
ture of the female above him, as is shown in the accompany- 
ing plate. In this position, the valves of the female’s eighth 
sternite project ventro-caudad below the tip of the male’s 
upturned abdomen, while the terminal segments of the fe- 
male project posteriorly over the upturned hypandrium. or 
ninth sternite of the male, as is shown in the figure. 1 
The male carries the female about on his back in this man- 
ner for some time; and the muscles operating the genital 
forceps become so set during the process that a copulating 
pair may be lifted up on a piece of paper without becoming 
separated ; and in several instances the writer succeeded in 
dumping them into hot fixing fluid without their becoming 
separated — as was the case with the pair from which the ac- 
companying figure was made. 
Egg laying probably occurs shortly after mating, although 
the writer did not succeed in observing the process. Accord- 
ing to Withycomb, the eggs are deposited in moss. 
1 The writer is deeply indebted to Mr. Hagar, a former student of the 
Massachusetts State College, for making the accompanying figures. 
