252 
PARASITES OF GIPSY AND BROWN-TAIL MOTHS. 
mined by Mr. E. A. Schwarz as Anthrenus varius Fab. and Trogo- 
derma tarsale Melsh. The Trogodercna was the more common of the 
two. Later, in the fall, another collection of old cocoons was made 
for the purpose of determining the status of these beetles. It was 
found that both of them fed, as larvae, upon the eggs of the tussock 
moth, and when they were confined in vials with eggs of the gipsy 
moth they fed not only upon the hairy covering of the egg masses, 
but also upon the eggs themselves. Larvae apparently of one of these 
species have several times been received at the laboratory associated 
with egg masses of the gipsy moth, which were in each instance col- 
lected upon the sides of buildings or in other situations different from 
those under which egg masses are most frequently encountered. 
As soon as the gipsy-moth caterpillars hatch, if, as frequently hap- 
pens, the egg mass is situated in some particularly well-sheltered spot, 
the young caterpillars are liable to attack by small carabid beetles, 
several species of which have been found under burlap bands in the 
spring apparently feeding upon the gipsy-moth caterpillars in this 
stage. Several of these species were made the subject of casual study 
in the summer of 1910, the results of which will be published later. 
The elaterid genus Corvmbites, though not generally recognized 
as predaceous, is undoubtedly more or less addicted to a diet of living 
insects. An adult of one species was once found feeding upon the 
cocoons of Apanteles fulvipes; and the larva of another, upon one occa- 
sion, at least, upon the pupae of the gipsy moth. There are many 
species in the New England States. Some of them are nocturnal, 
and it is not at all beyond the limits of probability that they may be 
found listed among the predatory enemies of the gipsy moth and the 
brown-tail moth when these lists shall have been finally completed. 
Among the coccinellids the large Anatis 15-punctata Oliv. has more 
than once been observed, as a larva, attacking the small caterpillars 
of the gipsy moth, and it is not at all unlikely that the species is actu- 
ally of as much consequence as some of the minor parasites in assist- 
ing in the control of the pest. 
The lampyrids, too, include amongst their numbers many species 
which are either occasionally or habitually predatory. One such 
which abounds in eastern Massachusetts in the spring flying about in 
the tops of the trees and crawling over the foliage was encountered 
in the spring of 1910 in the act of destroying a small gipsy-moth 
caterpillar. Probably one beetle would not destroy many cater- 
pillars in the course of its life, but there are such swarms of the beetles 
as to make, an average of even one caterpillar count materially in the 
end. Some of the Lampyrids are nocturnal, as infact are a great many 
of the proved or probably predatory Coleoptera, and their association 
with the gipsy moth is riol likely to be established unless special effort 
toward thai end is undertaken. Such studies require time and pa- 
