io4 The Ottawa Naturalist. [August 



MEETINGS OF ENTOMOLOGICAL BRANCH. 



Meeting' No. 14 held at Mr. MacLaughlin's, on February 

 24th, 1904; five present. Mr. Harrington exhibited Ottawa 

 coleoptera belonging to the families Ptinidae, Lampyridas, Mala- 

 chidae and Cleridse. Many species of the Ptinidae are injurious to 

 various trees, boring especially in injured specimens : other forms 

 destroy certain kinds of hardwood timber, also various drugs and 

 dry vegetable substances, etc. The Lampyridie are chiefly carni- 

 vorous in the larval stage, feeding frequently upon snails ; the 

 beetles are rather soft and unattractive in appearance, except those 

 forms known as fire flies, which attract attention during their 

 nocturnal flights by the bright flashes which they omit from certain 

 segments of the abdomen. The Cleridce are prettily marked 

 beetles, which are predaceous in both the larval and the perfect 

 states. Mr. Metcalfe said that he had observed Clcriis 4-giittatus 

 and Thanasimus diibius feeding upon a large plant-louse infesting 

 pines. Mr. Harrington alho showed a large handsome fly, which 

 he identified as Alopliora magnapeiinis^ recently described in 

 Psyche by Mr. Johnston from a specimen collected by Mr. Chag- 

 non, of Montreal. Mr. Harrington's specimen was collected in 

 1902 in the Beaver Meadow, Hull. Mr. Gibson exhibited the 

 following moths, which had been taken or bred for the first time 

 in Ottawa^ — Papaipema harrisii, Semiophora opacifrons, S. clitnafa, 

 Hillia crassis and Homoglcpa hirciiui. He also exhibited, on behalf 

 of Dr. Fletcher, a fine pair of the large and rare beetle Dynastes 

 giautii horn Phoenix, Ariz., and read an interesting note on these 

 so-called Goliath beetles. 



Meeting No. 15, held at Mr. Baldwin's, March loth, 1904 ; 

 six present. Dr. Fletcher showed an advance copy of the Annual 

 Report for 1903 of the Entomological Society of Ontario, which 

 seems fully up to the high standard of these publications. It con 

 tains a capital portrait of the Rev. G. W. Taylor, formerly one 

 of the Leaders of our Club, and now doing excellent work in Van- 

 couver Island, especially in the geometridse. Among the papers 

 in the Report are one by Dr. Fletcher on the Insects injurious to 

 Ontario crops in 1903, and one by Mr. Gibson on Basswood 



