THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 





to this insignificant shrub, could scarcely be classed with injurious insects; 

 but it appears to have likewise either a natural or an acquired taste for 

 poplar, and might become very destructive, a fact first brought to notice 

 in Bui. No. 7, 118, U. S. Ent. Com., where the compiler writes: "Gird- 

 ling the trunks of .sapling poplars, by carrying a mine around the trunk, 

 which causes a swelling often nearly twice the diameter of the tree. We 

 have found numerous saplings of the common poplar in the woods about 

 Providence with the unsightly swellings around the trunk." In case this 

 taste is perpetuated, this beetle will no doubt prove a formidable enemy 

 to this species of shade or forest tree. But in what State this Providence 

 is, or what kind of a tree "common poplar" is, we are not informed. 

 Here the common poplar is the Liriodendron tulipifera, but at that 

 Providence it may be a tree of some other genus. This beetle seems to 

 have an extended distribution, occurring in Texas, Michigan, Canada and 

 New York, as well as here. 



Aphodius rufipes Linn. — This fine beetle is an interesting addition 

 to our list, and is fully described by Dr. Geo. H. Horn in his exhaustive 

 Monograph of our /Vphodiini, just published, Tr. Am. Ent. Soc. Phil., 14, 

 1. In Europe it is widely distributed, and, though probably indigenous 

 here, as observed by Dr. Horn, has only recently been discovered owing 

 to its inhabiting territory the Coleopterous fauna of which is very imper- 

 fectly known. Only three American specimens were known while Dr. 

 Horn was writing the description, two taken at Deer Park, Garret county, 

 Md., and one at St. Vincent's Abbey, Westmoreland county, Pa. Dr. 

 Horn has now two specimens in his collection taken at the latter place, 

 and I have one from Turkey Foot (now Confluence), Somerset Co., Pa., 

 midway between there and Deer Park, which is in the extreme north-west 

 corner of Maryland, the meridian of which to the north passes over a 

 rugged semi-mountainous country; first over the hills bordering the 

 Yonghiogheny thirty miles to Confluence, and thence through the Laurel 

 Ridge Mountains forty miles to St. Vincents. How much further to the 

 north or to the south-west from the points named it extends in a long 

 range of country of the same general character, the future will determine. 

 The two individuals I have examined, on comparison with my European 

 specimens, do not differ perceptibly — a proof of the remarkable stability 

 of species, considering the time that has elapsed since the ancestors of 

 those of the two hemispheres parted company. 



