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Volume 30, Number 2
113
looking for whitish cocoons will probably find more empty than viable ones.
Few insects feed on sweetbay, but chewed leaves may not mean C. securifera is present. Grasshoppers or larvae of Papilio palamedes Drury may have done the damage. In southeastern North Carolina I have seen larvae of Epimecis sp. (Geometridae) feeding commonly on this tree in summer. Not all large cocoons on sweetbay may be C. securifera because larvae of the saturniid Antheraea polyphemus (Cramer) sometimes move from adjacent red maples (Acer rubrum L.) to spin their cocoons on sweetbay. Often nests or egg sacs of large spiders, including the green lynx (Peucetia viridam (Hentz)) and a yellow species of Thomisidae, are attached with sweetbay leaves to stems. The tendrils of Smilax spp. vines commonly hold dead sweetbay leaves up in trees. The collector should examine possibilities closely so that a C. securifera cocoon is not overlooked.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Dr. Richard B. Dominick and Mr. Charles R. Edwards for initial help in searching for cocoons of this moth. Drs. Merle Shepard and G. R. Carner of Clemson University helped with the manuscript.
Literature Cited
Brown, L. N. 1972. Mating behavior and life habits of the sweet-bay silk moth
(Callosamia Carolina). Science 176: 73-75. Ferguson, D. C. 1972. Bombycoidea, Saturniidae (in part). In R. B. Dominick
et al., The Moths of America North of Mexico, fasc. 20.2B, p. 155-269, pis.
12-22. E. W. Classey Ltd. London. Peigler, R. S. 1975. The geographical distribution of Callosamia securifera
(Saturniidae). J. Lepid. Soc. 29: 188-191. Skinner, H. 1920. Callosamia Carolina and Samia securifera (Lepid., Saturniidae).
Ent. News 31: 107.
A GYANDROMORPHIC LYMANTRIA D1SPAR (LYMANTRIIDAE)
It should not be too surprising to find a gyandromorphic Gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar (L.)) among the hundred thousands that have been defoliating trees in New Jersey the last few years. A single gyandromorphic, adult female was caught 6 July 1974 in Glendola, Monmouth Co., New Jersey in a light trap put up by the College of Agriculture, Rutgers University. The left antenna is female and the right, male. It is otherwise a normal specimen without any other deviations showing. The specimen is in the Rutgers Collection. Dr. J. P. Reed kindly loaned it to me for study.
Joseph Muller, R.D. #1, Lebanon, New Jersey 08833.