COLLECTING AND PRESERVING INSECTS BANKS. 



85 



In dry sandy places away from the seashore, the collecting at the 

 roots of plants is especially to be recommended, and the plants, and 

 more especially the bunches of coarse grasses usually growing in such 

 places, should be pulled up and shaken out over the collecting cloth. 

 This mode of collecting acquires a great importance in the arid regions 

 of the West and Southwest, where, in the warm season, nearly all 

 Coleoptera are hiding during daytime in the ground at the roots of 

 plants. 



Collecting dung beetles. — The collecting of the numerous species 

 llydrophilidae, Staphylinidae, Histeridae, Scarabseidse, etc.) which live 

 in the droppings of various animals is by no means an agreeable 

 task. The collector should provide himself with a pointed stick and 

 collecting tweezers, and must manage to pick up the specimens as 

 best he can. The larger specimens are best collected in alcohol, 

 while the more delicate species can be 

 collected in a cleaner condition by re- 

 moving the droppings and sifting the 

 ground beneath the same. Some spe- 

 cies hide deep in the ground beneath 

 the droppings and have to be dug out. 

 Summer freshets, when pasture lands 

 are inundated, offer an excellent op- 

 portunity for collecting the dung-in- 

 habiting species in a clean condition. 



Night collecting. — The beating of 

 trees and shrubs after dark is a good 

 method of obtaining Lachnosternas 

 and other species, and here the col- 

 lector will do well to secure the assistance of a companion, who 

 takes charge of the lantern and the collecting bottles, while the 

 collector himself works the umbrella. 



Autumn collecting. — From the first of August the number of 

 species gradually diminishes, but late in the summer or early in 

 autumn quite a number of other species make their appearance, 

 e. g., some Chrysomelidse, Cerambycidse, and many Meloidse. Many 

 of these frequent the blossoms of golden-rods, umbelliferous and 

 other late-flowering plants. The fall is also the best season for 

 collecting Coleoptera living in fungi. Although puff balls, toad- 

 stools, and the numerous fungi and molds growing on old trees, etc., 

 furnish many species of Coleoptera also earlier in the season, yet 

 most fungi, and more especially the toadstools, flourish best in the 

 autumn, and consequently there is then the greatest abundance of 

 certain species of Coleoptera. Decaying toadstools are especially 

 rich, and should be sifted, and the collector should also not omit to 

 examine the soil beneath them. 



Fig. 130.— A Silphip or carriox-beetle, 



SlLPHA BITUBEROSA. 



