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Vol. XLI. 



GUELPH, DECEMBER, 1909. 



No. 12. 



SOME GUESTS AT THE BANQUET OF BLOSSOMS.* 



BY F. J. A. MORRIS, TRINITY COLLEGE SCHOOL, PORT HOPE, ONT. 



In 1905, my first season of collecting, I went over to England at the 

 end of June on a botany trip. I had already begun to watch for beetles 

 on blossoms before leaving Canada, though my chief hunting-ground had 

 been the bark of trees. In England I knew that the latter game-preserve 

 was practically out of the question, as timber is far more scarce, and nearly 

 all the woods are kept too clean for fallen timber to lie or wood to rot. 

 If I meant to do any beetle-hunting, it must be by some other method, 

 and I naturally made up my mind to combine hobbies by carrying a 

 collecting-bottle out with me on my daily botanical rounds. 



My first stay was on a small estate in Chislehurst, Kent. Here, in 

 this garden within a garden, while wandering through a wood of hazel and 

 oak I came on a large clump of tall umbellifers in full bloom. I knew 

 already from Fowler's and other books that such blossoms were a favourite 

 haunt of certain beetles, and I made my way cautiously along a hedge of 

 rhododendrons towards the clump. As I did so, there rose from between 

 my feet a dark brown hawk-like bird, that flew up into my face and hovered 

 for some moments in front of me ; it was a nightjar, the famous goat- 

 sucker of popular superstition, menacing, but powerless to fulfil a threat, 

 being, indeed, cousin-german to our night-hawk and whip-poor-will, with 

 all the furtive movements and ghostly silence of the creatures that fly 

 abroad by night and hawk beneath the light of the moon. Like the night- 

 hawk, it builds no nest, but there among the round flint pebbles by an oak 

 lay its pair of eggs. 



When first I got to the clump of flowering plants and scanned their 

 broad white discs of blossom, among numerous diptera and hymenoptera, 

 nothing was to be seen except a few butterflies, but presently I saw a large 

 black and yellow Longicorn settle on an umbel some distance off. On 

 approaching I found two of the beetles feeding and succeeded in catching 

 one in my hand. They were very active, as quick as sunflies and almost 

 as wary, so that capture was far from easy. I managed, however, to get a 



*Read at the Annual Meeting- of the Entomological Society of Ontario, 

 Guelph, Nov. 4, 1909. 



