184 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



from them. Feb. i8, 1891, three examples were sifted from leaves 

 drifted against a fence, but not in company with mice. June, 27, under 

 a decaying log in a lot of dry vegetable matter, possibly an abandoned 

 mouse or bumble bees' nest, some 50 or 60 specimens were obtained. July 

 3rd, under circumstances similar to the last, about a dozen examples 

 were found. August loth, a single example was found on Chestnut 

 Ridge (one of the AUeghanies) under a stone where no nest nor mouse 

 far nor near could be found. The result of Mr. Schmitt's collecting 

 shows that Leptintis may be taken at any season of the year. It also shows 

 that it is not wholly dependent on mice or mice nests for its food, as of 

 the five captures it only occurred once with a mouse. All previously 

 recorded captures were made in the nests of this rodent, which has given 

 rise to the expression : " Parasitic in the nests of mice" etc. The state- 

 ment that Leptinns is parasitic on the bodies of mice is unsupported, 

 except in one erroneous instance, from which all assertions of this kind 

 have probably arisen. The statement in Insect Life cited, that it has been 

 found on mice by Dr. John A. Ryder, proves, on being traced up, to be 

 somewhat erroneous, and it is found, curiously enough, to have been a 

 mole — and dead — on which it occurred, perhaps much in the way a 

 Cercyon unipunctatum, a Siip/ia, Choleva, etc., might have been there. 



That Leptinus is not a parasite seems to have been the opinion of 

 some distinguished European authors, among them, Mr. A. Fauvel, who 

 published a paper on the subject in 1863, in Annales. Ent. Soc, France, 

 of that year, in which he states that this insect is found under dead leaves, 

 in leaves in hollow logs, under logs, stones and roots, and thinks, with 

 Fairmaire (cited), that the opinion that they are parasitic on or with 

 rodents is erroneous ; advancing the conjecture that they feed on small 

 fungi, like most Choleva, Agathidium, Oxypoda, Tachyporus, etc., the 

 decaying leaves and mosses of the nests of rodents often furnishing 

 supplies of this small vegetation accounting for their presence there. If 

 Mr. Fauvel is correct. in this surmise, it would be only in line for them to 

 resort occasionally to a carcass for food, if in its vicinity, as is the well- 

 known habit of many insects which live on decaying matter and low 

 forms of life, thus accounting for their presence on a dead mole, as found 

 by Dr. Ryder. Whatever may be the nature of its food, from the fore- 

 going it is evident it can and does live independent of animals, and that, 

 the proper term to apply to it in its relation to rodents would, perhaps, 

 be frequently inquilinous. In Europe the distribution of Leptinus is, 

 Germany, France, Sweden, Caucasus ; in America, that mentioned above. 



