134 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



It is necessary in these experiments to watch carefully for small spiders, 

 who very soon discover the eggs and devour them remorselessly. — W. H. 

 Edwards, Coalburgh, West Va. 



Food-plant of Darapsa versicolor. — I enclose leaves of the plant on 

 which the larvse of D. versicolor, Harris, the rarest of our Sphinges, feed. 

 It is a swamp plant, common in the vicinity of Brooklyn, N. Y. — W. H. 

 Edwards. 



[The plant has been kindly determined by Prof. Macoun to heCepJialantJius 

 occidentalis (the Button Bush). It is, he states, a shrub growing on mud 

 flats or along the low banks of streams ; it leaves are opposite or in whorls 

 of three leaves ; its flowers are white growing in round heads about an inch 

 across — hence the name.] 



Colorado Potato Beetle. — In addition to the localities mentioned in 

 our last number, we have received a specimen of this destructive insect from 

 Mr. N. H. Cowdry, Stratford, Ont., which was found there " on the side- 

 walk in a very mutilated condition/' Mr. Saunders has received specimens 

 from Sarnia, and has heard of its being found at Amherstburg. The last 

 number of the American Entomologist mentions that it has been found also 

 at Point Edward, the extreme southern end of Lake Huron. If prompt 

 action be not taken by the farmers in the western section of the country, we 

 shall soon, we fear, have to chronicle its spead over the whole of our country. 



Note on a Habit of certain Indian Coleoptera. — The Rev. A. B. 

 Spaight, late Missionary to Northern India, has informed me of a fact fre- 

 quently observed by him at Moultan, and which has, I believe, acquired 

 additional interest from the circumstances of its being a disputed point 

 amongst Naturalists. 



It appears that certain large beetles belonging to the Lucanidoe and Longi- 

 cornia are said to saw off small branches from trees in order to get at the sap 

 upon which they feed. Mr. Spaight (who only began to study the habits of 

 insects after he had left England) arrived in India under the impression that 

 the jaws of these large beettles (Lucanidce ?) were solely intended for bur- 

 rowing, — indeed, he had been told almost as much ; what was his surprise 

 then, upon first meeting with them in their native haunts, to see the huge 

 jaws clasping a branch round which at the same time the beetle was rapidly 

 whirling, so that in a short time the branch fell to the ground completely 

 sawn through ; whereupon the insect immediately set to work to suck up the 

 sap ! 



Being struck with this apparently new fact, Mr. Spaight paid particular 

 attention to it, and noticed the same thing over and over again, so that he is 



