Andrews—Experiments with Larva of the Bee Moth. 261 
Another attempt was made to raise larvae on animal food. Six¬ 
teen larvae, most of them 6 mm. long but a few 12 mm. in length, 
were placed in a Stender dish which was put in the constant- 
temperature compartment at 37° C. At the end of nine days it 
was found that two of the largest larvae were left, one of these 
was dead, and the other had pupated. Six days later a moth 
emerged from the cocoon; it was a male, rather small and very 
light in color. This male was functional, mating with an un¬ 
fertilized female taken from another lot of moths. 
Dead Moths. One day in cleaning out a dish which contained 
larvae about one fourth grown, several dead moths were found 
having young larvae in them apparently living on the dead tissues 
of the moths. The bodies of over one half of the other moths ex¬ 
amined were mere shells, all the interior portion having been eaten 
out. To ascertain whether larvae could be raised on this food 
alone, twelve young larvae, two or three days old, were placed in 
a Petri dish with a dozen dead moths, and the dish placed in the 
incubator at 37° C. All these larvae died within forty-eight hours. 
The experiment was tried again, using fifteen larvae and the same 
dish and moths, with the same result. Finally ten larvae were 
placed in the dish with fresh moths; of these three larvae lived: 
and seemed to thrive. They did not grow to be very large and at 
the end of thirty days spun cocoons and pupated, being then about 
J4 or % of an inch long. Unfortunately the moths did not 
hatch; hence it was not known whether larvae fed on dead moths 
would produce sexually mature moths or not. The experiment 
has been tried a number of times since, but the larvae always 
died within 48 hours. 3 
Zoological Laboratories, 
University of Wisconsin 
3 Professor W. S. Marshall tells me that he has allowed a number of moths 
to remain in a dish until they were all dead. An examination of these dead 
moths showed that egg's had been laid upon the body of many of them and 
generally concealed between the wings and the body. 
