46 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



in various parts of the city. It appears to prefer trees which have been 

 recently transplanted, and which are naturally not so vigorous as those 

 which grow undisturbed. My next-door neighbor set out several young 

 trees, from one to two inches in diameter, and upon these I took several 

 specimens. On the other hand, I observed them, beyond the city, 

 ovipositing in quite large and old maples, and even upon the limbs of an 

 old tree which had been broken and blown down. Thus, it appears, 

 that the size of the tree does not make much difference to them, and that 

 in the city they attack the smaller trees because they are less vigorous than 

 those that have recovered from the effects of transplantation. 



PROTECTIVE COLORATION IN THE GENUS CICINDELA. 



, BY C. H. T. TOWNSEND, CONSTANTINE, MICH. 



In the summer of 1884, while collecting the green tiger-beetles in the 

 woods, it struck me very forcibly how the Cicindelae that inhabit such 

 places — scxguttata Fab. here, campestris Linn, in England, others else- 

 where — are for the most part of a beautiful green, so as to assimilate in 

 color with the surrounding vegetation and herbage among which they may 

 alight ; while those that frequent the bare ground, banks, sand hills, sandy 

 stretches, beaches, bars — vulgaris Say, repanda Dej., maritima Dej., and 

 many others— are of the colors easily assimilative with those that surround 

 them on the flats and stretches where they are found. 



Although those of the class first referred to often alight upon bare 

 ground, it is mostly at such places as have been cleared by man (I am 

 speaking of sexguttata Fab. now, this being the only species of a con- 

 spicuous green that I have had the opportunity to observe in its native 

 habitat), their original haunts being the fresh, green woods, where nearly 

 everything is clothed in greenness in its natural state. There they can 

 hardly be distinguished when they are alighted, even though on a log, for 

 the dazzling greenness of the forest at the time these insects appear fastens 

 that color upon the eye, so that for the moment they become invisible, 

 though you may be looking directly at them — invisible, certainly, so far as 

 recognition is related to invisibility ; every collector knows that it takes 

 practice to distinguish these insects in their native haunts. Even though 

 the surrounding vegetation is sparse, the effect is the same. This arises 



