1916 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 19 



where I paddled over in the hopes of locating a colony of Chrysomela scalaris, var. 

 pnirsa, I discovered nearly all the foliage on the island fretted into holes by 

 millions of Brachys ovata on oak, ccrosa on basswood and grapevine. About the 

 middle of the month I spent a day at Hastings, and saw for the first time 

 immense numbers of the larvae of the Jumping Sumach beetle (Blepharida rhois) ; 

 they were feeding on the fragrant or Canada Sumach. -This shrub I have seen 

 in three places only, on the north shore of the upper Eideau, in August, where 

 the imago of this beetle was abundant; on the cliffs below the Whirlpool Eapids, 

 Niagara, where no trace of either larva or imago could be seen; and here at 

 last, June, 1915, where hibernated imagoes were occasional and larvae in great 

 abundance. The larva is one of the most disgusting sights in the insect world. 

 It is covered with what appears to be liquid excrementitious matter. This is 

 smeared so thickly over its surface as to give it a deformed lumpy appearance. 

 The insect glistens with this slime much as the larva of the saw-fly, known as the 

 Pear-tree Slug. Though the sumach grows, a low and upright shrub, in open 

 pastures, and the insect feeds in broad daylight, exposed on the upper surface of 

 the leaves, yet the fiercest rays of noontide sun seem to have no effect on its slimy 

 coat; it neither evaporates nor cakes. Without imputing a fairly high aesthetic 

 sense to insectivorous birds, we must suppose this creature to be just about as 

 savoury a morsel as it looks; the soft, helpless, sluggish infant of a larva is just 

 as immune as the hard-shelled, leaping and flying beetle. 



On June 13th I captured a newly emerged specimen of the Elder-borer, 

 Desmocerus palliatus, south-east of Peterborough. This is the earliest record I 

 have made for the insect in our latitude; they became abundant in the last week 

 of June. About the 10th of July I captured six in Niagara Glen and as late as 

 the first week of August one in the neighborhood of Owen Sound. About the 

 middle of June in some felled and decayed elms lying on the edge of a poplar 

 swamp I found breeding several specimens of Pliysocnemum hrevilineum. These 

 were settling in the sunshine on the prostrate trunks, or sheltering from the 

 east wind in crevices and under loose flakes of bark. It was there and then that I 

 found the first specimen of the Elm Saperda {Saperda tridentata) I have ever 

 taken on its food tree. As the net result of two visits to this collecting ground 

 I will list the more interesting captures made : 



*t> &' 



Physocnemum hrevilineum (elm) 25 



Saperda tridentata (elm) 14 



**Tetropium cinnamopterum (white pine) 1 



**HopIosia ntihila (basswood) 1 



Callidium antennatum (cedar) 1 



Pachyta monticola (thimble-berry blossom) 6 



Leptura proxima (thimble-berry blossom) 2 



**L. chrysocoma (thimble-berry blossom) 1 



L. 6-maculata (thimble-berry blossom) 1 



Rhagium lineaium, (hemlock trunk) 1 ' 



Clerus thoracicus var. rufiventris 19 



(wood piles) abundant 



Melanophila fnlvoguttata (newly felled hemlock) ... .abundant 

 Anthaxia ceneogaster (fleabane blossoms in hemlock swamp) 



abundant 

 Xenorhipis hrendeli (basswood stumps) abundant 



