THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 155 



Oak, Maple, Butternut, Thorn, Sweet Briar, Asclepias, Fern, &c. On 

 Asclepias and Fern they only rolled one edge of the leaf, and sometimes 

 spun up on the leaf exposed without any covering. I also found several 

 spun between stalks of grass, indeed they selected some most extraordinary 

 places, for a friend of mine showed me one in a bird's nest. The nest 

 was built in a Fir tree and contained four eggs, over which the cocoon 

 was spun and attached firmly to the sides of the nest ; it would not have 

 been so strange if the nest had been on any of its food plants and built 

 low down, but this was on a Fir tree and a good highth from the ground. 

 I suppose it may be set down as one of the freaks of Nature. I selected 

 cocoons from leaves of various trees and plants, and all of them proved 

 to be Clisioaimfia sylvatica, Harris. 



Rare Captures. — Debts porlajidia. — I found a locality for this butterfly 

 in a sunny opening in a wood at Lachine, nine miles west of this city. 



Erebus odora, Cram. — I received a specimen of this splendid moth, 

 taken in this city in July of this year. It was attracted into a room by 

 light. I believe this is the farthest north that it has been taken. Both 

 these species were kindly determined for me by Mr. Herman Strecker, of 

 Reading, Pa. — Frank B. Caulfield, Montreal, P. Q. 



Reduvius raptatorius. — One night at the end of April I caught one 

 of these swift-footed insects, and while holding it between my finger and 

 thumb it managed to insert its proboscis into the latter member and gave 

 me, much to my surprise and disgust, a most savage sting. The pain was 

 very great — much more than that caused by a mosquito, and it continued 

 for about five days, although the thumb did not swell. I put the R. R. 

 into a jar of water in which, for a fortnight, I had been keeping a large 

 water-beetle ( Dytiscus), feeding it with flies, ectobias and other insects; 

 but this Hemiptera was too much for the poor beetle. It refused to be 

 quietly killed and eaten, but instead, pierced the hard shell which in the 

 morning was floating dead upon the water, while the victor still lived. 

 The mode of the beetles's attacking its prey was very interesting ; it 

 would make a sudden dash, seize the quarry with its strong mandibles, 

 then dive down and swim about beneath the surface as if to drown its 

 victim ; then after a time it would rise to the top and there quietly crunch 

 up its food,discarding the wings as too dry eating.-R.V.RoGERS,Kingston. 



Venemous Caterpillars. — Mr. R. Benson, of Madras, India, gives 

 the following account, in a recent number of Nature, of pain inflicted by 

 a caterpillar : — " In 1868, when travelling in company with Capt. Street in. 



