PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE, WITH EXAMPLES 107 



Quaint Visitors to the Sap Fountains on the Oak 



— was the first 

 to mind, as I 

 ing flower beetles 

 of a 3'oung burr-oak. 

 flight which suggested 

 tiouslv neared the 



«UMBLEBEES 

 thought that came 



sighted some swarm 



collected on the bark 

 There was something in their 

 that of a large bee. As I cau 

 spot, I found there were nineteen bumble flower beetles. 

 Euphoria inda, yet they so perfectly simulated the bark that 

 it required careful examination to count them. Some were 

 closely packed together, others moved about here and there 

 within a small circumscribed area of about four inches while 

 still others crawled over the backs of the quiet ones struggling 

 for places of rest. Sometimes one, or perhaps several, would 

 become crowded from their stations, and were forced to take 

 wing. With loud buzzing of wings, the dislodged members of 

 the group would make short temporary circuits into the air, 

 they then would settle back on the bark, again joining the 

 assemblage. 



This harmless species of beetle is sometimes seen in sunny 

 spots early in the spring before the snow is fairly off the ground. 

 They then fly like the bumblebee alone near the earth among 

 the herbage, making as much ado with their buzzing wings as 

 the largest of our bumblebees. All through the summer they 

 are rarely seen. But in the latter part of September, I found the 

 special attraction on the oak that lures the fall brood. Destrue- 



