1 12 
Psyche 
[March-June 
ing directly on the surface of the honeydew. Fruiting bodies of 
Alternaria spp. are very common, with Piricauda spp., Helmintho- 
sporium spp., and Fumago spp. somewhat less abundant. 
In addition to the presence of honeydew in the gut of most adults 
examined, many individuals were also found to contain a considerable 
amount of pollen (fig. i). We considered an individual to be feed- 
ing selectively on pollen whenever we found compact masses of one 
species of pollen predominating in the gut (Table i, columns 
3 and 4), while individuals were considered to be feeding largely 
on honeydew when only occasional, scattered pollen grains, usually 
of several different species, were present along with the other honey- 
dew materials mentioned above (Table 1, column 2). Of the 133 
specimens examined, 48 had a sufficient amount of one type of pollen 
in the gut to indicate preferential feeding. Several species of pollen 
were detected in these individuals, including (at various times of 
the year) Catalpa bignoniodes, Acer saccharum , Ulmus sp., Carya 
sp., Celtis occidental™, Zea mays, and a monoporate type of grass 
pollen. In most of these cases the gut contained evidence of honey- 
dew in addition to the pollen. Only five of these 48 individuals 
were found with nearly pure pollen. Of the remaining 85 specimens 
(Table 1, columns 1 and 2) most had a few scattered pollen grains 
representing several plant species. 
The first indication of preferential pollen feeding in our samples 
occurred in the middle of April and coincided with the early spring 
flowering of a number of forest trees. Some preferential pollen 
feeding continued throughout the spring and summer and was par- 
ticularly noticeable in samples from agricultural fields taken when 
the extensive stands of field corn tasselled. This utilization of corn 
pollen was coinfirmed both by examination of the gut contents of 
the specimens collected on the corn and by direct field observation 
of feeding adults. 
The frequent presence of a characteristic type of insect seta in 
the gut contents at first suggested that either C. carnea was picking 
up a very common type of seta from the debris on the honeydew or 
that occasional arthropods were being taken for food (fig. 2). The 
origin of these setae was ultimately found to be from the grooming 
of their own integument, as we recovered large numbers of such 
setae from the gut contents of a lab-reared individual that had been 
fed only sucrose. This origin was substantiated by a microscopic 
examination of the integument, which showed that most of the body 
setae are identical to those recovered from the gut. 
