51 



inverted umbrella, many insects which would otherwise escape 

 observation. A covering of white silk for the umbrella vv^ould 

 be best ; and it would also make the best screen against the heat 

 of the sun. Numerous small beetles may be taken by sweep- 

 ing the grass, or trailing over it a deep bag net. A wide 

 mouthed bottle partly filled with meat, and suspended in a tree, 

 would be likely to entrap Nccropliori, iSiljyha', etc. 



Dr. Pickering wants to know what peculiarity in habits is 

 caused by pectinated nails. Can you aid him and me in this 

 question? My observation tends to this explanation which I 

 suggested to him. The Lehice^ Cymindes^ Notliorce and Cisfdce 

 are all anthophagous in their perfect state, and may possibly 

 use these little combs to gather pollen, or to cleanse their bodies 

 when covered Avith it. Although spiders, which have two of 

 their three claws pectinated, use these organs in keeping sep- 

 arate the threads of their webs, we do not know that the above 

 named Coleoptera are furnished with serictera, silk secretories, 

 or fiisuU, spinners for the manufacture of threads. Indeed 

 Sydrophilus is the only coleopterous insect known to fabricate 

 such tissues, which it uses for the protection and envelopment 

 of its eggs. The nails in this genus are not pectinated. I 

 have also observed that the insects with fissile, bifid, and den- 

 tated nails were phyllophagous in the perfect state, for example, 

 the 3felolo7ithce, Tclephorus, etc. We know that the former, 

 which in the division of the nails makes an approach to tlie 

 pectinungulated Coleoptera, do not manufacture silk, nor enclose 

 their eggs in a web. Tlie nails, then, most probably are thus 

 cleft or toothed, for some purpose connected with their mandu- 

 cation, perhaps to tear the leaves before they are eaten, or to 

 retain the insect more firmly upon them while feeding. 



I shall call the insect (7., in my last, Ropaloceros faseiatus ; 

 the name of the genus being taken from the singular bat-shaped 

 antennae. * 



