THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 125 



and were coated with grains of sand, which made them about tlie thick- 

 ness of a pipestera. 



When we left the brook on our return home, we felt that we had had 

 a very successful day. We had gone really on a venture, and we had 

 found much more than we expected, and had a delightful outing into the 

 bargain. 



In the early Spring, on such days as this, aquatic insects can be very 

 profitably collected, especially for life-history work. They are active long 

 before any others, as soon as the ice begins to disappear, and present a 

 practically unexplored field to the earnest entomologist. To the mere 

 collector they offer no inducement to compensate for the labour of col- 

 lecting them, and are exceedingly uninteresting, being ordinarily incon- 

 spicuous, sombre in coloration and retiring in habit. But to the scien- 

 tific worker they present some of the most interesting adaptations to 

 environment and conditions in the entire field of entomology. 



Two days later I went to the Mosholu locality in this vicinity, and 

 my experience there illustrates this point. Although I spent a good deal 

 more time there, I saw but few insects flying, all Diptera. My catch was 

 all Coleoptera, none active, all hibernating under stones, and consisted 

 principally of Staphylinidse, some Carabidae, one Elater ; and also, one 

 active Jassid, undetermined. It was not as good in numbers or variety as 

 the one of the 12th, although the latter locality in Summer is very rich 

 in species and abundant as to numbers. 



J. R. DE LA Torre Bueno, New York. 



^GIALITES DEBILIS, MANN. 



Leconte and Horn, in their " Classification,'' say of this beetle : 

 " It is of such extreme rarity as to have been seen by but few entomolo- 

 gists." It was with considerable interest, therefore, that I captured my 

 first specimen one March afternoon in 1894. I was lying on a pebbly 

 sea beach, turning over stones, when I came upon Ai. debili^ on the 

 under side of a stone. From Leconte's description I felt pretty sure that 

 my identification was correct, and it was subsequently confirmed by Dr. 

 Fletcher, of Ottawa. Leconte says the beetle is black, but he had prob- 

 ably seen only dried specimens. Freshly-taken specimens show a distinctly 

 green tinge. The insect is about .15 inch long, and in general shape sug- 

 gests a small carabid. 



Many a subsequent search in the same locality proved fruitless, for 

 the insect's proper habitat, as I afterwards discovered, is not among loose 



