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Vol. XLVII. LONDON, JUNE, 1915 No. 6 



POPULAR AND ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 



Some Manitoban Water Beetles; 

 by j. b. wallis, winnipeg, man. 



Entomologists in Manitoba have as yet given but little atten- 

 tion to the aquatic Coleoptera, so that our list of these interesting 

 insects is but a short one. Mr. Norman Criddle, of Aweme, has 

 done some work among them, and I, too, have given such time as 

 could be spared — unfortunately all too little — so that our captures 

 comprise practically all the local records. Some seven species of 

 HaliplidcF, fifty of Dytiscidce, seven of Gyrinidce, seventeen of 

 Ilydrophilidce, and but two or three of Parnidce is but a poor list 

 for a Province containing such a variety of water formations as 

 Manitoba. 



A few years ago there was a most charming crescent-shaped 

 slough situated in Elmwood, and only a half mile from my home in 

 Winnipeg. When I first knew it, it was perfectly wild, hardly a 

 house on that side of the river within a mile. To get to it from 

 St. John's, Winnipeg, one had to go by boat across the river or 

 else about four miles round by street-car and then walk a mile. 



But it was well worth the journey. On the southeast side of 

 the slough, in the hollow of the crescent, was a rise clad to the 

 water's edge with poplar and oak mixed with many of our prettiest 

 flowering shrubs — Saskatoon plum, hawthorn, tree rranberr>- and 

 others. What a paradise for the nature-lo\X'r it was on a sunny 

 morning in late May! As one strolled quietly through the wood 

 many of our most beautiful birds were sure to be .seen or heard. 

 Here a flash of gold and the rich note of a Baltimore Oriole, there 

 the black, white and rose of the Rose-breasted (irosl)eak; down 

 among the willows by the water the Myrtle Warblers are busy; 

 in the slough itself tlie cr\- of a Crebe or Coot or perhaps the 

 Inioming of a bittern. 



