Cjje dfanabian (SidomoIopL 



VOL. XII. LONDON, ONT., APRIL, 1880. No. 4 



ENTOMOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS. 



TIGER BEETLES. 

 BY R. V. ROGERS, KINGSTON, ONT. 



There are probably over ninety thousand different species of Beetles 

 in the world, and first and foremost of this mighty legion stand the Cicin- 

 delidae. Well, therefore, might they demand our attention from their 

 high position in the Coleopterous world alone ; but they have many other 

 claims on our consideration. They are cosmopolitan — no pent-up Ithaca 

 contracts their powers ; they are beautiful ; they are fierce ; they are 

 blood-thirsty ; they are useful ; and the family name is an old one — known 

 to scientists and men of letters in the days when Jupiter and Juno were 

 king and queen of heaven, to the inhabitants of old Rome. 



The family is divided into several branches ; in Canada we have only 

 the representatives of one branch, but it is the original one, the Cicindelas. 

 In the United States there are a couple of other branches as well, which 

 reside principally far to the west. 



There is much in a name. The patronymics Smith, Barber, Wright, 

 tell the origin of the family at once ; so Cicindela informs us that those 

 that are so called are " bright and shining ones," while the English cog- 

 nomen of Tiger Beetle lets all Anglo Saxons know that it is a creature 

 that lives by preying on the blood of others. Brilliant, beautiful and 

 elegant in shape are these beetles, and they appear to revel in the merry, 

 merry sunshine ; on every bright summer day they are to be found running 

 and flying about sunny banks, sandy places and wherever the god of day 

 beats down his life-giving rays ; most of them avoid vegetation, as it 

 would check their rapid progress ; some species, however, linger in grassy- 

 spots among scattered trees. They are among the most predaceous of 

 the Coleoptera ; " they act like the tigers among Mammalia, the hawks 

 among Birds, the crocodiles among Reptiles, or the sharks among 

 Fishes." In some of them activity, as well as brilliancy of coloring, is 



