THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 47 



wild places along streams that flow between rugged hills and mountains. 

 Here it appears early in May on the blossoms of the wild plum, and a 

 little later in more abundance on various species of Cornus (C. circinata, 

 C. paniadata and C. alternifolia), popularly known as swamp dog-wood, 

 though the species mentioned do not usually grow on wet ground. It is 

 also fond of laurel blossoms ( Kalinia latifolia and K. august if olia). I 

 have never observed it later than the first week in June. It is exceedingly 

 wary and active, not being easily taken by beating. After a sudden noon- 

 day shower I took over twenty specimens, by hand, from a low Cornus 

 bush, into the cymes of which they had crawled for protection. 



It greatly resembles G. cyauipeuuis, and like it, varies in color from 

 bright green to copper and golden ; but is always to be known by its 

 rufous abdomen. The structural differences, notwithstanding the close 

 similarity, are so great that eventually the two species may be placed in 

 different genera. See Bulletin of Brooklyn Ent. Soc. v. 7, p. 107. 



Sapei-da discoidea Fab. According to all the observations on record 

 that I have seen, the larva of this beetle lives under the bark of diseased 

 or deadened hickory and walnut, and before transforming penetrates the 

 solid wood and there undergoes its changes. My own observations are 

 not in accord with this. I once took from the thick bark of a hickory log 

 in some cordwood, four mature individuals, the larvae of which had fed 

 partly on the bark and partly on the wood, and when approaching maturity 

 had entered the bark and there disclosed. The past year, I found in May 

 more than twenty of the full fed larvje, pupae, and beetles yet immature, 

 in the bark of a large standing hickory that had been deadened about two 

 years previously; they were all on the north side of the tree and none 

 over fifteen inches from the ground. After feeding on the outer layers of 

 wood till they had nearly attained their full growth, the larvas had bored, 

 instead of the wood, into the thick bark, closing their burrows in the 

 usual way, and there transforming like the species of Urographis do in 

 oak bark. 



Where the larva selects the wood it may be legitimately inferred that 

 the bark is not thick enough for its purposes. But how does it know 

 whether the bark is thick or thin ? This instinctive versatility in adapting 

 itself to circumstances is only another of the mysterious things that meet 

 the investigator of Nature at almost every step. 



Dloedus pundatus Lee. is abundant here from April to September. It 

 inhabits decaying oak (mostly of the red and chestnut species) that is 



