20 THE EEPOET OF THE No. 36 



Division No. o, Poet Hope District — Fiuxcis J. A. Moeris^ Peterborough. 



Your Director has been specializing almost entirely in Ceramhycidae this 

 season, and few observations in other families and orders have been made. The 

 Report for the year will present, in brief pageantry, the procession of summer 

 months from Spring to Autumn. 



Early in April before the snow had entirely gone two or three specimens of 

 Disoni/clia triangularis were noticed in the muddy ruts of a side road west of 

 Peterborough; nearly a fortnight later two more specimens of the same beetle were 

 captured in a similar situation north of Port Hope. During two very hot bright 

 days in Easter Aveek, large numbers of a beetle about the size of the common " June 

 bug " were observed flying rapidly along just over the grass, and occasionally 

 csoaring up about the boulevards in Toronto; no capture was made, but the habit 

 of flight makes probable their identification as Euphoria inda. This beetle we 

 have never seen captured in the district of Port Hope or Peterborough; it is pro- 

 bably abundant west of Toronto, and has been taken about Orillia. Whether it 

 breeds in S.W. Ontario or not, I do not know; at any rate it Avould seem to have 

 spread by flight to a great distance from its original breeding ground. Its absence 

 from the central district immediately north of Lake Ontario may be due to its 

 low habit of flight; this would render a wide stretch of water a formidable barrier. 



During the last week of April, and the first week of May, three specimens 

 of HyJotritpes ligneus were taken in and about the City of Peterborough. From 

 the first week of May for more than three weeks, specimens of Pachyta monticola, 

 were abundant; on Victoria Day upwards of 30 were captured in various blossoms, 

 such as Crinkle-root (Dentaria diphylla), white Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) , 

 large-flowered Cranesbill {Geranium maculatum), and — its favorite host — Early 

 Elder (Samhucus racemosa). On the same shrub in the third and fourth weeks 

 of May, several specimens of Syneta ferruginea were observed, and about the foli- 

 age of wild raspberries in the flrst two weeks of June this beetle was very abundant. 

 Li?ia interrupta was taken feeding (as usual in this neighbourhood) on alder, and 

 its next of kin, Lina scripta was found abundant on willows — especially low bushes 

 bordering wet meadows and swamps. Observations made in 1914 and 1915 in 

 regard to forms of the genus Chrysomela and their various food plants were re- 

 newed; one or two specimens of a more robust Chrysomela scalaris than that 

 noticed on alder were captured; these had a more normal sculpture of the elytra 

 and would seem to have bred out on basswood foliage. 



On June 4th, while collecting about the margin of a wood some miles south- 

 east of Peterborough, we noticed among some Cyrtophorus verrucosus, feeding on 

 blossom of choke-cherry, a beetle very similar, but smaller and less prominent on 

 the thoracic disc and elytral bases. Close examination of the insect showed it to be 

 identical with a unique specimen captured in Port Hope on spiked maple in the 

 year 1907. This insect had been returned from Montreal in 1909, labelled as the 

 male of Microclytus gazellula Hald. ; it being assumed for purposes of such deter- 

 mination that the length of the antennal Joints 2, 3 and 4 inter se in that genus 

 (as described by LeConte and Horn) was true only of the female, while the male 

 had them proportioned as in Cyrtophorus. Twelve specimens of the beetle were 

 captured on this day (June 4th, 1916) all on choke-cherry and among them a pair 

 in conjunction; they all proved to have the proportion of joints 2, 3 and 4 con- 

 stant, and as in Cyrtophorus. Between June 12th and June 18th, three more 

 specimens were taken on the blossom of spiked maple. With the unique speci- 

 men of 1907, there was therefore a series of sixteen for purposes of comparison. 



