3 8 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [December, 



new vegetation springs up and a new brood of insects follow. 

 Especially the banks of rivers and creeks are covered with herbs 

 and weeds six and more feet high, and in some places where 

 horses, cattle, sheep and goats are not admitted, there is splendid 

 collecting till heavy frosts come. The assembling of immense 

 numbers of Danais berenice and archippus in October indicate as 

 well as the arrival of cranes, ducks and geese, the approach of 

 the end. About the middle of November thousands of males 

 of Hemileuca maia are flying around in search of the females 

 which are sitting on low bushes near the ground, and that ends 

 the wholesale collecting. 



On dark nights placing a lamp standing in a basin filled with 

 water, as people use here to catch the cotton-moth (Aletia) you 

 catch insects by the quart, but most of them are of no use for the 

 collection. There is a great number of Noctuidae, Microlepid- 

 optera, and also Coleoptera attracted by the lamp on your table 

 on nights when there is no moon shining. 



We have needle grass and spear grass which pierce the pants, 

 stockings and skin; we have grass-burs {Cenchrus tribuloides) 

 provided with barbed hooks which adhere to the net, then easily 

 enter the fingers, but is difficult to extract; we have numbers of 

 Cactaceae; not only the upright, easily discernible Opuniias, but 

 also some Mammilarias, nearly hidden in the earth and only 

 protruding their two-inch spines, which pierce the hoofs of the 

 horses and the soles of your shoes; we have Spanish daggers 

 {Yucca) and the number of thorny bushes is legion; yes, there 

 are some bushes which have thorns instead of leaves. So much 

 for the pleasure of the vegetable kingdom. 



You are tired and want to sit on a fallen tree or a stump. 

 Something is biting or stinging ! Is it an ant ? We are power- 

 fully rich in ants ! Is it a scorpion, or a centipede, or one of 

 those poisonous spiders ? You walk through the tall weeds and 

 something is rattling. Is it a rattle snake ? No, it is only one 

 of those grasshoppers which make a similar noise. I am not 

 afraid of snakes and have killed a great many, but as often as I 

 see such a beast, four to six feet long suddenly moving before my 

 feet, I always have a cold sensation at my neck. Do you know 

 the ticks and the red bugs ? We have large ticks and seed-ticks, 

 cattle-ticks and men-ticks by the millions, and if you go out col- 

 lecting and do not find any other thing you may be sure to have 



