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HARDWICKE'S SCIEN CE-GO S S IP. 



species. One very rare species of the Staphylinidrc, 

 or Cocktail beetle (Atemeles emarginatus), has now 

 become quite common, so frequently is it found in 

 the nest of the ant. The locality of this beetle was 

 discovered by a collector, who saw an ant carrying 

 one of the beetles into its nest. As to the beetles 

 themselves, they seem to be quite as much at home 

 as the ants ; and, when the nest is laid open, their 

 first attempt is to escape into the furthest galleries, 

 or to hide themselves in the nearest crevice. The 

 ants, however, watch them carefully, run after them, 

 seize them in their jaws, and carry them back again 

 into their nests. — Wood, "Homes without Hands." 



The Firefly in Canada.— The Firefly (Lam- 

 pyris corusca) illuminates our summer nights with 

 its radiance. When I came up the country from 

 the St. Lawrence, travelling late one evening, I 

 first saw these pretty insects. The light you see is 

 of a yellow colour, like that of flame, and very 

 different from the blue gleam of our English glow- 

 worm. From this circumstance I at first took 

 them for candles in the woods, and though told 

 what they were, at every one that appeared the 

 same idea would come across my mind, that it was 

 some one in the woods carrying a candle, until I 

 became more familiar with them. Even now, if I see 

 one suddenly, without having expected it, the im- 

 pression momentarily recurs. They more frequently 

 fire out the light while flying tban when crawling 

 or resting, though we may often observe the inter- 

 mittent gleam as one crawls up a stalk of grass or 

 rests on the leaf of a tree. They fly slowly, and as they 

 fly, emit and conceal their light with great regularity, 

 at intervals of two or three seconds ; making inter- 

 rupted lines of light through the air, gleaming slowly 

 along for about a yard, then suddenly quenched, and 

 appearing again at the same distance. The insect 

 is a pretty beetle, with soft elytra of a light brown 

 colour, marked with red, and handsomely striped. 

 The light proceeds from the last three segments 

 of the abdomen, which are of a delicate cream-colour 

 by day. At night these three segments are bright 

 at all times, but at the regular intervals I have 

 mentioned they flash out with dazzling splendour. 

 If this part be plucked off and crushed, many 

 patches of brilliance occur for a few moments 

 among the flesh, but they gradually die away. In 

 summer evenings they often occur in great numbers, 

 especially over wet and marshy ground : I have 

 seen the whole air for a few yards above the surface 

 of a large iield completely filled with them, thicker 

 than the stars on a winter night ; and flashing and 

 disappearing, every one moving about in their mazy 

 evolutions,— it is really a very beautiful sight. It is 

 commonly believed these numbers precede rain. 

 Notwithstanding their abundance, they are not 

 often seen by day. They are known here by the name 

 of lightning bugs.— Gosse, " Canadian Naturalist." 



Blisteu-Fly.— On the lGtli of June of this year 

 I captured a single specimen of the elegant Blister 

 or Spanish-fly (Lytta vesicatrix). It was crawling 

 lazily over a rose-bush, after the manner of its kind, 

 in the early morning. This beetle— for beetle it is, 

 in spite of its common name— is, I think, sufficiently 

 rare to warrant a record of its capture in the pages 

 of Scie nce- Gossip.— W. W. Spice r, Itchen Abbas. 



Khagitjm bifasciatum.— I cannot understand 

 how your correspondent " J. L. C." (S.-G., 81, 

 215) has found any difficulty in getting a descrip- 

 tion of Rhagium bifasciatum. 1 imagined it was 

 described in all works giving characters of the 

 species of British Coleoptera. In any I have seen 

 it is mentioned. 11. bifasciatum is one of our com- 

 mon longicorns, and it is much more often met with 

 than the allied species, R. indagator and li. inqui- 

 sitor, though the latter is not rare, at least in 

 Scotland. It feeds as a larva in fir wood, always in 

 decaying trunks or branches, in which the large 

 maggot-like larva may be frequently and abundantly 

 met with. I have found fifty or sixty in a small 

 portion of a decaying branch of a Scotch fir. The 

 perfect insect is generally most plentifully to be 

 found in September and October, though I have 

 met with it at most times of the year. I take the 

 following short description of it from the " Ento- 

 mologia Edinensis," which happens to be by me : — 

 " Brownish black, shining, elytra with two oblique 

 abbreviated testaceous yellow fasciae. The exter- 

 nal margin and apex of the abdomen rufous, ? 

 9 — 10 lines, <? considerably smaller." I have found 

 the perfect insect generally in the wood, but 

 sometimes taking a wider range, and examining the 

 bloom of ragwort ; by which I mean Senecio, and 

 not Tussilago. — W. I). R. 



Betentiveness of Memory in a "Wolf. — In 

 the year 1SG7, during a sojourn at Clifton, I struck 

 up a great friendship with a wolf confined in the 

 Zoological Gardens. He became so attached that 

 he would allow me to caress him through the bars 

 of his cage, to place my hands in his mouth, and, in 

 short, he played with me exactly as a dog would, 

 much to the surprise and amusement of the by- 

 standers, a crowd of whom I have often caused to 

 start by simply whistling from a distance, when the 

 wolf would leap violently against the door of his 

 cage, and make frantic efforts in reality to get at 

 me, although to the spectators it seemed as though 

 he was only bent on sanguinary thoughts towards 

 themselves. That the animal's attachment was 

 purely personal is shown by the fact that a friend 

 of mine, desirous of emulating my success, got 

 rather a nasty bite for his pains. After a while I 

 left Clifton, and did not return until May in the 

 present year. One of my first visits was to the 

 Zoological Gardens, and I at once set to work to 

 test the wolf's affection and retentiveness of memory 



