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THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Similar fungi will sometimes be found to contain a great many very 

 slender little white grubs, with a black head no larger than a pin hole. I 

 have seen them twisted together in such lumps that the black heads 

 seemed like some tiny mites creeping about over the wriggling mass, in 

 which the respective bodies were lost. These are the larvae of Triplax 

 thoracica, a reddish beetle, one-fifth of an inch long, with blue-black 

 elytra, .belonging, like the first beetle described, to the Erotylidae. 



Penthe obliquata is a very active beetle which scampers hastily away 

 when disturbed at its fungus feast or in its hiding place under bark, and 

 thus frequently eludes its discoverer. It is of a deep dull black, only 

 relieved by the reddish yellow scutel and a yellow apical joint to the 

 antennae. The elytra are very densely and irregularly punctured. This 

 fine beetle is half an inch long and almost oval in shape. A rarer and 

 slightly larger, but not so handsome insect, is P. pimelia, which I have 

 found under the bark of old trees. It is of a dull brownish black, and 

 has the elytra more evenly and less densely punctured. As it lacks the 

 yellow scutel, it is easily distinguished from the preceding species. 



Many Staphylinidae are found in the stalks of Toadstools and in other 

 fungi, while those of many other families resort to these productions 

 either for an occasional meal or for a life-long diet. Such are Cratoparis 

 lunatus among the Weevils, and Onthophagus hecate of the Scarabeans. 

 To even enumerate these would require much space, but I think I have 

 already written enough to show that the young collector will find it profit- 

 able to search the different fungi for specimens, especially early and late 

 in the year, when other feeding grounds are unproductive. I might add 

 that many insects in turn fall victims to fungi. The house-fly is a familiar 

 instance of this, and every fall we see great numbers of them stick to our 

 walls and windows, their bodies distended by the fungus, which also 

 spreads some distance around them. 



Correction. — I desire to correct an error in my late Annual Address 

 to the Entomological Society of Ontario, to which my attention has been 

 called by Prof. C. V. Riley, in reference to the larval habits of the black 

 blistering beetle, Epicauta pennsylvanica. On page 196, Can. Ent., I 

 stated that " the larva of this insect is found only in the nests of bees, 

 wasps, &c, 'where it feeds on the young of these nest-making insects." 



