l8o ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [April, '09 



with our light, a gas-lamp borrowed from a bicycle ; flashing it on trees 

 and earth and many a nocturnal prowler has been taken that in day- 

 light would have been snugly housed in some inaccessibly dark retreat. 

 These excursions began in April and were carried on until the cool 

 evenings made our trips useless. 



Among the trips we made I will mention a few that yielded good re- 

 sults, although most of them brought to light many things new and 

 interesting to us. 



On the evening of April 24th while walking through a strip of 

 woodland on the outskirts of the city we found a dog that had met an 

 untimely end. It was alive with Diptera larvae and feeding on these 

 were several species of Carabids and Silpha surinamensis Fab., the lat- 

 ter appeared to suck the juices from the larvae, it would take a larva 

 in its jaws for a few moments, drop it and repeat the performance with 

 another; we also took S. inaequalis Fab. and 5". surinamensis Fab., 

 a specimen of Necrophorns, Histerids, Dermestids, also Staphylinus 

 maculosus Grav., Crcophilus villosus Grav. and many other Staphyli- 

 nids, all apparently feeding on the carrion. 



On May I2th we found specimens of Lachnosterna feeding on a shrub 

 along the park driveway in numbers so great, they resembled in the gas- 

 light small cherry-trees laden with fruit. 



June i3th we visited a grove of dead and dying hickory trees, our 

 practice was to throw the light on the trunks of these trees, which 

 revealed this time Graphisurus fasciatus DeG., whose modest coat and 

 the fact that it remained motionless in the light made it hard to dis- 

 tinguish from the gray bark; we also took Cyllene pictus Dru. and 

 Neoclytus erythrocephalus Fab. We found that in all our night collect- 

 ing when the light was thrown on a tree-trunk, the insects on it would 

 remain motionless until the light was removed, although a slight touch 

 would cause them to drop, so we invariably used a cyanide jar for this 

 lafFer purpose, touching the insect lightly with the rim of the jar, it 

 would drop into it of its own accord. 



On July 6th we visited the same grove of hickory, the night was 

 warm and sultry and the first tree we turned our attention to was 

 swarming with Saperda discoidea Fab., there they clung motionless in 

 the cracks of the bark, probably ovipositing as they appeared to be most- 

 ly females ; we took a quantity of these, the next tree yielded more 

 S. discoidea, Xylotrechns colonus Fab. in quantity, running up and down 

 like ants; Neoclytus luscus Fab. was fairly common and about one-half 

 dozen specimens of Distenia undata Oliv. were taken, these trees were 

 also infested with several species of Scolytids and two specimens of 

 the Clerid, Thancroclcrus sanguineus Say. fell to our lot. Pulling the 

 loose bark from a dead oak, Smodicum cucujiforme Say. was found in 

 large numbers also several specimens of Eupsalis minuta Dru. 



