THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 45 



inine nature of the Greek P-SU-KHE. Without the article, SAKHU is 

 the understanding, the ilhiminator, the eye, and soul of being, that which 

 inspires. 



The ancients evidently were not very good Entomologists, for this 

 original meaning, beautiful as it is, is altogether incompatible with the 

 teachings of the modern science, for in these days we realize that the so- 

 called spiritual life, as represented by the butterfly, is but a span in com- 

 parison with the earthly life, as illustrated by the larva, and that the 

 heavenly aspiration and grace which mark the shorter life are the outcome 

 of a comparative eternity of rioting and waste ; yet, be it said, the silk 

 worm at the eleventh hour makes a good record. 



" Well were it for the world, if all 



Who creep about this earthly ball, 



Though shorter-lived than most he be, 



Were useful in their kind as he." 

 Moreover, who that has ever attempted to capture a Limenitis arthe?nis, 

 but has learned to his cost, that though a thing of beauty, and its posses- 

 sion a joy forever, its habits are deceitful. Well do I remember a chase 

 for this butterfly - the first that I had ever seen on the wing. It was a 

 royal game of tag, with hide-and-go-seek variations. We see-sawed up 

 and down a ravine for nearly an hour. When first discovered it was 

 regaling itself in the sunlight, upon a leaf about half way down the oppo- 

 site bank, all the while jerking its wings, after a fashion, as if beckoning 

 me over. By the time I had worked my way down over the rocks and 

 through the briers, it was spreading its wings on the bank I had just left, 

 and when I returned it was away again' to its favorite leaf on the other 

 side. Tired and heated, I gave up the chase, when the arthetfiis, in a 

 most provoking way, lit upon a shrub beneath my very nose. This 

 coquettish insect apparently realized my discomfiture, and after repeated 

 approaches and withdrawals, it rose on wing, and with 



*' The light coquettes in sylplis aloft repair 

 And sport and flutter in the fields of air." 



SHORT NOTES ON COLEOPTERA. 



BY JOHN HAMILTON, M. D., ALLEGHENY, PA. 



Hololepta fossularis Say. The habitatio of this insect is usually under 

 locust bark in the first stages of decay, a fact so well known that collectors 



