364 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [Oct., '15 



Notes and Ne\vs. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL GLEANINGS FROM ALL QUARTERS 

 OP THE GLOBE. 



Habits of Xenoglossa brevicornis (Cresson) (Hym.). 



The Rev. G. Birkmann, of Fedor, Texas, writes as follows : "I am 

 sending you some bees which were gathered for a night's rest on the 

 sprig of mesquite, also sent. Altogether there were just a dozen, all 

 males. It is the first time I have found them so. They took hold of 

 the leaves' petiole with their jaws, swung clear, and brushed themselves 

 with their feet, then quieted down. All twelve were on the small twig 

 during the whole night. I had taken them to my room. At 7 o'clock 

 in the morning they were still resting, clinging to their twig on my 

 desk, beside an open window. Date of capture, July 5." The speci- 

 mens sent are all males of Xenoglossa brevicornis. T. D. A. COCKE- 

 RELI,, Boulder, Colo. 



An Observation on a Buprestid (Col.). 



On the I7th of May, 1915, I received word from Mrs. H. Grandjean, 

 of Oakland, California, that she had found a "beautiful green beetle," 

 which had been working inside the door stile of the toilette-room, and 

 that she had saved it for me. On the following Sunday I went to her 

 house and was shown the door, which I examined carefully. It ap- 

 pears that the lady saw something moving on the door stile, which 

 on closer observation proved to be a beetle trying to escape from inside 

 the stile. She took a penknife and enlarged the hole sufficiently to allow 

 the insect to escape. The beetle was a Buprestis aurulenta Fab. Dur- 

 ing the careful examination of the door I failed to find any evidence of 

 any other holes, other than the one of exit, which was one and one- 

 half inches deep and very nearly perpendicular. Otherwise the door 

 was in perfect condition. From the bottom of the hole some wood 

 dust was removed; it was of the color of healthy, dry, white pine, of 

 which the stile was made. 



In looking up the history of the house I found that the present 

 owner, Mr. H. Grandjean, had purchased the house some twenty-one 

 years ago, and it was at that time five years old, which made the total 

 time twenty-six years since the house was built. The door in which 

 the beetle was found had never been changed or replaced, and had 

 been painted and varnished twice during the twenty-one years. The 

 most interesting question about this beetle being in the door is, how 

 long had it been since the egg, or the larva, gained entrance to the 

 wood of that stile? 



Buprestis aurulenta Fab. is one of the most common species of the 

 genus in California, and is naturally confined on the Pacific Coast to 

 the districts timbered with coniferous trees. Dr. Blaisdell tells me that 

 it is plentiful in Oregon and Washington; in California he has col- 



