582 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [November, 



spring. I survey the phenomenon from my door-step. There 

 are robins carroling in the trees, and there are butterflies in the 

 air : ] 'atiessa antiopa and J \ inilbcrtii are flitting about, together 

 with a few Grapta zephyrus and fewer Pieris rapes. These are 

 too common to be tempting, but at this time of the year the} r 

 are germs that awaken the collecting fever from its winter 

 lethargy. Collecting net is unfolded and examined, there 

 are a few slight souvenirs of last year's thorns and twigs, not 

 large enough, however, to form an "open door policy." Cy- 

 anide bottle is uncorked, the fumes are still potent enough 

 to disconcert most anything of a hexapodal nature. 



'Tis but a half hour's walk to the river Jordan. Cicindcla 

 TII lean's is there, running everywhere over the moist sand. 

 About twenty of them are captured. They show considerable 

 variation in size, coloration and markings. But we get tired 

 of taking nothing but vu/garis, and move on. 



Across the river is plenty of open field of dry clayey soil, 

 covered here and there with last year's growth of crisped salt 

 grass, and dotted here and there with an occasional stagnant 

 pond. Here we find a few Calosomd zimmermanni and Elcodcs 

 hispilabris. As we near one of the ponds a sudden buzz and a 

 streak of bright metallic green marks the transit of Cicindcla 

 graminca. We note the termination of the green streak and 

 creep forward. It is easy to discern a shining emerald against 

 a dull background of clay and yellowed grass, and we soon 

 place seven of these emeralds to our credit. 



But the streak that vanishes before us is not always a green 

 one : occasionally it is dark indigo, and leads to the capture of 

 C. audubonii. At this point we remove all other specimens 

 from our cyanide bottle, for audnbonii is large and powerful, 

 much larger here, I am told, than the same species farther 

 east, and if placed in the bottle along with other specimens 

 he usually divests some of them of their antennae and legs, if 

 not worse, before yielding to the opiate. 



An interesting fact is here noted : we find in two instances 

 the $ of C. xTiiH/iiu'a mating with the 9 of C. audubo)iii, 

 and in both cases both insects are netted while paired. I have 

 not before known of intermarriages among separate species of 



