6 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 



"There," he said, disclosing four little blind nestlings, "what's 

 them?" "Why," I said, "they look like weasels." "That's what 

 they are, I reckon," came the answer, "and the mother fought like 

 a good one for nearly an hour to get back to them. We had to drive 

 her off with stones before we could get at work on the culvert." 

 Along this stretch of road, within the space of a few rods, we 

 shall find no less than 5 genera belonging to Tribe VIII on 

 our list. Under chips of wood by the roadside in the early spring 

 I have frequently found a small beetle, variegated black with 

 yellow brown stripes, called Prasocuris; on the common milkweed 

 the large handsomely marked orange and black Doryphora clivi- 

 collis and on the bittersweet growing over that stone-pile, its cousin 

 Doryphora decemlineata, that ubiquitous pest, the Colorado potato- 

 beetle; in the blossom of the dogwood, a small metallic dark green 

 beetle that feeds also on elm leaves, Plagiodera viridis; about the 

 knotweed at the wood's margin, the pretty little Gastroidea poly- 

 gons with yellow brown thorax and peacock-green elytra; while in 

 the grass, a little further on, I took two specimens of Lina scripta 

 as early as the end of April; no doubt hibernated specimens, 

 probably from the willow clump nearby, for that is the favourite 

 food plant of the Lina scripta; it is a somewhat variable species, of 

 which I have found two quite distinct forms on the willow — one 

 the normal form at Guelph and the other near Lindsay. There 

 still remains in this tribe a genus that I have so far left unmentioned, 

 the most beautiful of all the family and well worthy of the high 

 compliment (pace the economic entomologist) paid it by natural- 

 ists^— Chrysomela (Golden Apple)— or is it an Homeric word, 

 meaning "golden sheep?" from which the tribe gets its name of 

 Chrysomelini or Chrysomela-like beetles, and the whole family its 

 name of Chrysomelidse.; the scions or clan of Chrysomela. This 

 is a most beautiful beetle; the characteristic appearance being roun- 

 dish-oval in shape and decidedly convex above; head and thorax 

 mostly dark metallic and wing-covers a creamy white, daintily 

 sculptured with metallic greenish or bluish black. It suggests old 

 ivory inlaid with ebony or jet. In the early days of collecting, this 

 was a beetle I coveted more than any other ; the species that above 

 all took my fancy being Chrysomela scalaris. There was a brother- 

 collector in town whose cases I was continually poring over. But 



