84 



BULLETIN 67, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



beginner will at first crush or otherwise injure many of the delicate 

 specimens, the capture of which is moreover by no means facilitated 

 by the rapidity with which most of them are able to take whig. The 

 collector must necessarily kneel down, and he must not mind getting 

 covered with mud. A good device for driving these species out 

 of their galleries or from their hiding places under stones or in cracks 

 of the ground is to pour water over the banks, and this can in most 

 cases be done with the hand. Larger stones and pieces of wood or 

 bark lying on the bank are favorite hiding places of certain larger 

 Carabidse (Nebria, Chlsenius, Platynus, etc.), and should of course be 

 turned over. Finally, the moss growmg on rocks and logs close to 

 the water's edge, and in which, besides other beetles, some rare 

 StaphylinidsB and the Byrrhid genus Limnichus 

 can be found, should be scraped off and investi- 

 gated on the collecting cloth or on the surface 

 of a flat rock, if such be conveniently at hand. 

 Collecting aquatic beetles. — The fishing for wa- 

 ter-beetles in deeper water by means of the 

 water net has already been alluded to, but 

 many species five in shallow brooks with stony 

 or gravelly bottom, where the water net can not 

 be used. The Dytiscidae and HydrophilidsB 

 living in such places usually hide under stones, 

 and can in most cases be easily picked up with 

 the hand, or a little tin dipper or a spoon will 

 be found convenient for catching them. The 

 species of the family Parnidae are found on the 

 underside of rough stones or logs which are 

 either partially or entirely submerged. They 

 are more numerous, however, in the moss or 

 among the roots of other plants that grow in 

 the water. Such plants have to be pulled out and examined over 

 the collecting cloth. 



Collecting at the seashore and on sandy places. — A large number 

 of species belonging to various families five exclusively in the vicin- 

 ity of the ocean, some on the open beach, others along the inlets, 

 bayous, or salt marshes, and still others on the dry sand dunes. The 

 Cicindelse are actively running or flying about close to the water's 

 edge and have to be captured with the butterfly net. The remain- 

 ing maritime species live hidden under the seaweed and other debris 

 cast up by the waves, or in the sand (sometimes quite deep below 

 the surface) beneath the debris or between the roots of the plants 

 growing on the dunes. The majority of the maritime species do not 

 appear before June (in the Middle States), but the collecting remains 

 good until September. 



Fig. 129.— A tiger-beetle 



ClCINDELA LIMB AT A. 



