110 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



took a magnificent specimen of Buprestis striata basking on the tip of a 

 branch of white pine, and in August of the same year I saw darting about 

 in the mid-day heat and settling from time to time on the foHage of a spruce 

 the gorgeous little Buprestid, Chrysobothris harrisii. This dazzling 

 vision in peacock-blue was vouchsafed to me for a moment only and then 

 withdrawn, but in my mind's eye I have been "following the gleam" ever 

 since. Altogether that proved a red-letter day in my calendar, for I 

 captured on the trunk of a newly-felled balsam fir at the same spot my 

 sole specimen of Monohamnius mariJiorator. 



A great many of the Cerambycidre or Long-horns are fond of this 

 sun-basking; and I have made occasional captures on foliage of species 

 that usually seek the shade ; once a specimen of Callidiuin afiteimatuvi 

 on a blade of grass by the roadside, and once a fine specimen of Calloides 

 nobilis on a stalk of sedge by the railway track. But of those that are 

 active by day, many of them feeding in blossoms, I have found many 

 species on leaves, especially of the two tribes C/y//;// and Lepturiiii ; in 

 one or two cases the insect seems to prefer one foliage to all others, and 

 perhaps such captures ought not to be regarded as merely incidental ; for 

 •instance, I have found C/yta?ithus ruricoia show a decided preference for 

 the leaves of the thimbleberry, though it does not often feed in the blossom 

 of this plant. 



The capture I look back upon with greatest pride was that of a small 

 specimen of Etipogonius suharjuatus in my first season of collecting. I 

 was going through a belt of basswood on the lookout for various things, 

 but chiefly "Walking Sticks" and the larvie of Chrysomela scalaris ; by 

 "Walking Sticks" I mean the Phasmid, Diapheromera femorata, an Orih- 

 opterous insect next of kin to the Praying Mantids ; it occurred not 

 infrequently that season about the Rideau on basswood ; still more 

 abundant on basswood leaves were the larvae of Chrysomela scalaris, and 

 I was rearing some in captivity. While scanning the under side of the 

 foliage just above my head I noticed a leaf through which the sunlight 

 passed imperfectly ; there was a small opaque area near the leaf; in short, 

 something rather smaller than a housefly was casting its shadow on the 

 upper surface. I drew the leaf cautiously down and surprised a diminu- 

 tive longicorn sunning itself in the middle of the leaf; unfortunately, I 

 surprised it in more senses than one, for, in response to a stimulus of self- 

 preservation, it instantly collapsed, and tumbling down the leaf in a series 



