92 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



NOTES. 



WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION OF COLIAS PHILODICE. 



In August, 1886, while visiting in Louisiana, Mo., I made frequent 

 excursions to damp places along a neighboring brook in search of butter- 

 flies. It was the droughty season, and there were but a few stagnant pools, 

 damp gravel beds, and moist clay slopes at which insects could slake their 

 thirst. At one of the last named places I noticed a great bunch of 

 Coliads (mostly Colias philodice with an occasional Eiirytheme), and a 

 few specimens of Piei-is rajxe, which my advance started and put to flight. 

 As a few individuals did not take to wing, but seemed unable to rise 

 though they fluttered violently, my curiosity was aroused and a closer 

 investigation showed the bank and gravel bed below to be strewn with 

 mutilated specimens of Philodice, scores of individuals, detached wings in 

 some cases, in others the head and thorax remained intact. Upon taking 

 the struggling butterflies by the wings I found they were held firmly to 

 the ground, their abdomens being drawn into the burrows of Tiger-beetle 

 larvae. They were being actually eaten alive by these voracious grubs. 

 I found that the robbers after eating the softer parts of the butterflies cast 

 the wings and harder parts away from their holes. Upon my retiring a 

 few yards the thirsty butterflies returned and settled down to sip the 



moisture again. Those that alighted over the burrows were quickly 

 seized by their cunning enemies, and the poor creatures could only 

 flutter, unnoticed in their death struggles by their unsuspecting compan- 

 ions. I found the clay slope to contain great numbers of these holes or 

 burrows, and the top of each hole displayed a dark head with a pair of 

 ugly jaws, murderous assassins in hiding, thirsting for innocent blood ! 



R. R. Rowley, Curry ville. Mo. 



Errata. — C. E., Vol. XXIII., p. 34, line 8 from bottom, and p. T^d, 

 line 4, for " Lee." read " Sec." ; p. 34, last line, for Prioma read 

 Pf-ionia ; p. 35, line 6, for " Lilia " read " Tilia " ; p. 35, last line, for 

 " Basidomycetons " read " Basidomycetous " ; p. 36, line 15, for " Lilia" 

 read " Tilia." R. Thaxter. 



* ,^ * The Editor craves the indulgence of his correspondents, as he 

 has met with a severe domestic affliction in the loss of his daughter, Agnes 

 Emily Bethune, who died on the 2nd of March in the twenty-second year 

 of her age. 



Mailed April 7th. 



