178 Journal New York Entomological Society. [^'°1- ^-^i^- 



Weiss, H. B. 

 1920. State of N. J., Dept. of Agriculture, Circular No. XXXI, p. 9 (Notes 

 on Food Habits of Brachys). 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



Lathridiidae in the heart of New York City (Coleop.). — Many spe- 

 cies of the beetles of this family have been found to be cosmo- 

 politan, and the following incident would lend plausibility to the as- 

 sumption that not only are they generally widely scattered, but 

 much more abundant than the scant material in collections would 

 lead one to suspect. During the past summer, while I was away 

 in the country, a leak in the plumbing in my city house soaked the 

 wall against which stood a large number of beetle boxes. Upon 

 examining the latter after discovering the condition of the wall, I 

 was aghast at the mass of mould, white, green and yellow, which 

 completely covered the specimens and a great part of the lining of 

 the boxes. Their contents seemed irretrievably lost ; but I deter- 

 mined to do what I might to save something from the wreck. In 

 this, by the way, I was highly successful, succeeding in removing the 

 mould and cleaning the specimens with a camel's-hair brush and a 

 solution of carbolic acid. But while engaged in this work I found 

 between one and two hundred live specimens of Lathridiidse, evidently 

 attracted to the boxes by their moist, mouldy condition. Four species 

 were represented, all of them originally described from specimens 

 taken in localities far removed from our shores, and so far as 

 known by no means common in this country. The question pre- 

 sents itself: How then did they find those mouldy boxes in a '"brown- 

 stone front" of a New York City block? If not indigenous (though 

 their original discovery elsewhere does not necessarily preclude such 

 a possibility), commerce is of course responsible for their introduc- 

 tion here. But whatever their origin, it would seem by no means 

 improbable that they may be present almost anywhere that offers 

 conditions favorable for their sustenance and reproduction, and that 

 dusty crevices in our city houses (between floor boards, etc.) may 

 have their Lathridiid content wholly unsuspected by us, even though 

 we regard ourselves as observant coleopterists; and owing to their 



