COLLECTING AND PRESERVING INSECTS BANKS. 



79 



and hemipterist to secure large numbers of rare species, but favorable 

 days are also here of rare occurrence. 



Attracting by lights. — On the beaches, day and night flying insects 

 can thus be captured. Away from the beach night-flying Coleoptera 

 can best be collected at the electric lights of our cities; but, as in 

 the Lepidoptera, not all night-flying species are attracted by the light. 

 Gas and other lights also attract Coleoptera, and the various ''light 

 traps" that have been devised and described can advantageously be 

 used for collecting these insects. 



Traps. — The method of "sugaring," so important to the lepidop- 

 terist, is by far less favorable for collecting Coleoptera. Still, certain 

 rare Carabidse, Elaterida?, and Cerambycidse are attracted by this 

 bait, and the coleopterist should not entirely ignore this mode of col- 

 lecting. There are a few other methods of trapping certain coleop- 

 tera. By laying out dead mammals, birds, fishes, snakes, etc., on 

 suitable places and so 

 that they are protected 

 from dogs, rats, etc., the 

 carrion-feeding Coleop- 

 tera can be found in 

 great abundance, but a 

 cleaner and less disagree- 

 able method of obtain- 

 ing them is to bury in 

 the ground tin cans or 

 glass jars so that the top 

 is even with the sur- 

 rounding ground and to 

 bait them with pieces of 

 meat, fried fish, boiled 

 eggs, etc. Many Curculionida?, Scolytidse, and numerous other 

 wood-inhabiting species can be successfully trapped in the fol- 

 lowing way: A number of branches, preferably of only one kind of 

 tree, are cut and tied up into bundles of convenient size. The 

 bundles are then laid on the ground in a shady place or firmly fas- 

 tened on trunks of trees. When the cut branches begin to get dry 

 they will attract many of these Coleoptera, which can then be readily 

 collected by shaking the bundles out over the collecting cloth. 



Freshets. — Freshets usually take place in springtime in most of our 

 rivers and creeks, and furnish the means of obtaining a multitude of 

 Coleoptera, among which there will be many species which can not, or 

 only- accidentally, be found otherwise. These freshets, Sweeping 

 over the low banks or inundating wide stretches of low land, carry 

 with them all insects that have been caught by the inundation. 

 Intermingled with, and usually clinging to, the various floating 



Fig. 123.— A clavicorn beetle, Silvantts surlnamensis: a 

 Beetle; b, pupa; c, larva; d, antenna of same. 



