186 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the beetle is not a member of our fauna. 1 saw Air. Scliwarz in Wash- 

 ington, and asked him if he had located your find. He said he could 

 make nothing of it. I shall at once send one, at least, of the specimens 

 to Dr. Sharp, and will promptly report to you what he says. An attempt 

 to place it with our classification gives only negative results, but it certainly 

 possesses as many points in common with the Lymexylidie as with any 

 family which we have. But that frontal ocellus ! ! And those antenna; ! ! I 

 I hope to study it further soon." A few weeks later Mr. Fall wrote again, 

 and, referring to what he calls ''your conundrum which none of us can 

 guess," he said : " I sent a specimen to Dr. Sharp, of Cambridge, 

 England, and have to-day received a letter from him, in which he admits 

 never having seen anything like it. There is nothing at all resembling it 

 in the Palearctic fauna, he says. He doesn't know what family to assign 

 it to, but suggests that it may belong to the Dermestidre, on the strength 

 of the frontal ocellus. The mystery deepens. Tlie creature is such a 

 ghostly, unsubstantial thing for a beetle — a regular coleopterous ghoul — 

 that I almost find myself wondering if, when I look in the box again, I 

 won't find it vanished into thin air. Did you find it actually feeding on 

 the specimens ? Was there sign of larvre ? Pardon my numerous ques- 

 tions, but the case is so remarkable that I would get all possible informa- 

 tion. We must, perhaps, put some coleopterous Sherlock Holmes on the 

 trail to run this fellow down." After another letter from me he writes : 

 "The fact that you found numerous larvse of Anthrenus in your box of 

 moths would certainly account for the damage done, but the further fact 

 of shaking these little creatures from the bodies of the moths would 

 indicate that they themselves were not entirely guiltless. I suppose the 

 age and character of the box is such that the beetles could not possibly 

 have come from its wood or lining? Well, I give it up." And there my 

 story practically ends. 



Before I left New York in May I had bottled all the specimens I could 

 find in the infested box and returned it, with its debris of half-devoured 

 insects, to the cedar-closet. There also were at least a half dozen similar 

 boxes containing insects, all infested by Anthrenus, and possibly other 

 pests, but not one of the little anomalous creatures could be found among 

 these. On my return in October 1 at once opened the closet and 

 examined my " traps " with their tempting bait. Not a sign of the curious 

 beetle was thcie. Nor has it ever reappeared. My little stock obtained 

 a year ago is much diminished, 1 having sent specimen." to various corre- 

 spondents. Shall I ever find more specimens of what I have sometimes, 



