THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. Ill 



of somersaults, like the clown in a pantomime, disappeared from the stage. 

 For nearly half an hour I hunted among the debris at my feet, and at last 

 discovered the little harlequin playing 'possum under a twig. 



At first I took this beetle for AmphionycJia fiammata^ to which 

 superficially it bears an extraordinary resemblance ; but I found the 

 ungues or claws (which are divaricate) simple instead of cleft ; as they are 

 distinctly cleft in Amphionycha, the foot appearing to end in four minute 

 claws, it became certain my capture was Eiipogonius siibarmatus. 



Another form of incidental capture is where beetles of a carnivorous 

 habit resort to foliage in search of food. I have once taken Calosoma 

 scrutator, and several times- Calosoma calidum on the foliage of the white 

 pine ; these enterprising ground beetles poaching on the arboreal preserves 

 for caterpillars ; many of the diurnal fireflies, which are carnivorous, may 

 be found resorting to foliage for the same purpose, and the Cocci?iellidcB 

 or Lady-birds are regularly so taken. One July I found two or three 

 species of Lady-bird resorting in large numbers to an asparagus bed, where 

 they were doing yeoman service in devouring larvse as they fed on the 

 foliage ; on the vie7iii of their banquet, if not the piece de reststajice^ was 

 Crioceris asparagi, and they were feasting royally. 



Passing from incidental captures to those where the insect was found 

 on its food-plant, I shall begin with an insect I saw in July three years 

 ago, which did not devour the leaves, but using its jaws as a pair of 

 scissors, cut them and rolled them up into cylinders. I mean the weevil, 

 Attelabus analis, the oak-leaf roller. 



I was examining the leaves of various plants, herbaceous and woody, 

 along the railway track, some 12 miles north of Port Hope — especially 

 willow shrubs and oak-seedlings whose foliage was lush and tender, the 

 leaves being, many of them, still pink and soft — when I noticed a curculio 

 with black head and snout, the thorax and elytra of a shining chestnut-red. 

 I recognized it from having seen cabinet specimens as one of the oak-leaf 

 rollers, and on diligent seach I found it fairly abundant and always on 

 young leaves, which no doubt proved more pliable and easily worked by 

 this ingenious little artificer. It was not easy to see much work done, as 

 the beetle is easily alarmed, and drops from the leaf if approached too 

 closely. I was able in one case, however, to watch the actual process of 

 rolling, and in another some of the preliminary work of cutting. Obser- 

 vations published in an American journal of entomology go to prove that, 



