THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 389' 



itself in an air-tight cocoon which is fastened to the roots or stems 

 of the food-plant beneath the surface. The beetle is covered' on 

 the under side with a pubesence that acts as a perfect aquifuge 

 shedding the water like oilskin. The species found here in the cod 

 da}^s of April is more or less cylindrical (convex on the upper side) 

 and quite sluggish in habit, but the Donacia of the dog-days in the 

 height of summer is a very dififerent creature. I well remember 

 during my first visit to the Algonquin Park how one day I went 

 over with the late Dr. Brodie to the. little land-locked Cranberry 

 Lake in the heart of the hardwood forests. It was a glaring hot day, 

 with the sun at its height and perfectly calm. We rowed a boat 

 down to the Cranberry marsh at the foot of the lake, where all sorts 

 of botanical treasures awaited us. On the way we passed through 

 a patch of water-lilies and flushed a covey of Donacias; there 

 must have been hundreds, leaping and flying from the lily-pads, 

 striking the sides of the beat, sometimes in the water, occasionally 

 on our clothes, darting and glittering in the sun like sparks from 

 the molten surface of the cauldron of heat formed by this woodland 

 lake at high noon beneath an August sun. The activity of move- 

 ment and extraordinary vitality in the sun's heat are not common 

 among the Chrysomelians, but they are among some of the Longi- 

 corns, with which the Donacias have a close affinity. Lords, for 

 the nonce, of all three elements, earth, air and water, they moved 

 easily about all three, perfectly at home and at their ease. On 

 cooler days, or when the breeze blows, they love to sit on their 

 beloved lily-pads, like miniature batrachians, their thorax and 

 head partly raised and their antennae thrust forward alertly, som.e- 

 thing like the asparagus beetle when it scents danger. 



We shall now stroll south about a mile, along the edge of a 

 wood we call the North Wood, a wood sacred by many memories, 

 rich in flowers, the home of some rare orchids, in and about which 

 I have found more than 20 species of ferns and a wide range of 

 warblers and other birds at the spring migration; it is, besides, 

 the scene of many of my best captures among the Coleoptera. 

 Ten minutes' walk brings us to where the wood narrows close to a 

 division fence, running west across meadow-lands to the railway. 

 Just here stands, on the edge of the wood, a hawthorn, whose 

 blossom, for some reason or other, has proved a beetle-trap or bait 



