Vol. LII. LONDON. APRIL. 1920. No. 4 



POPULAR AND PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOC.Y. 

 Familiar Haunts. 



by francis j. a. morris, 



Peterborough, Ont. 



Finding myself in Port Hope on the last day of June, 1918, I took occasion 

 and my hobby by the forelock, and, in the company of my fellow-collector of 

 old days, headed north for some woods just west of our favorite "Rocky 

 Mountains." Here lies as pretty a tract as can be found in all Northumber- 

 land, with extensive bush to west and north and embracing roughly a square 

 mile of ground. It forms a kind of table land of middle elevation between the 

 Port Hope plains and the long wooded ridge that stands out against the sky- 

 line as you look north from the campus of Trinity College School. 



Deserting our usual route for a somewhat more westerly course, we held 

 up the Bewdley gravel-road past the first line north of Dale; here a rough road, 

 closed off by a gate, runs east to a gravel pit. Just beyond this we turned north 

 to examine a grove of mixed hardwood and pine where the axe had been busy. 

 In spite of its being bright and hot, we could find nothing at work about the 

 cord wood and stumps, nor even about a few recently felled maples lying crushed 

 and shattered as saw or axe had left them. 



It was hot work and dry, stumbling about the clearing over rough, hard- 

 baked ground, and even my hobby — old war-horse that it was — showed signs of 

 flagging. My companion dismounted altogether and soon found a ready-made 

 cozy corner in the grass beneath a shady evergreen. Just before giving up the 

 search myself, and already at the point of indifference, I happened to spy a 

 trunk of white pine lying in the very centre of the clearing, where the sun poured 

 down relentless rays. 



As I approached it I saw a small, dark longicorn settle on the butt; this 

 proved to be Acmaeops proi-eiis, a beetle sufficiently uncommon in our neighbor- 

 hood to warrant capture. Then while skirting the trunk, I noticed near the 

 middle and on the upper side, clinging to the rough bark, a blackish longicorn 

 with yellow marks on the elytra; at first glance I took it for Clytanthus ruricola 

 and wondered what it was doing on pine, for I have never captured this insect 

 except on foliage or in blossoms, where it is a voracious pollen-feeder. A second 

 look showed me at once that the beetle was new to me; it was much shorter 

 than C. ruricola and had a peculiarly truncate appearance. Moreover, the 

 iTiarks and lines of yellow pubescence on the wing-covers formed a different 

 pattern from that of Clytanthus, being unlike both in shape and in disposition. 

 Both insects are nearly Ijlack, "piceous" rather than jet; the antennae in both 

 are fairly short, somewhat darker in the stranger, whose thorax, also, is shorter 

 and less elevated; the forward margin of the thorax in both is fringed with 



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