180 Kansas Academy of Science. 



NOTES ON COLLECTING CICINDELIDiE.— II. 



By Eugene G. Smyth, Topeka. 



THE four years that have elapsed since the presentation of 

 the author's first Notes on Collecting Cicindelidw have 

 afforded introduction to several rare and very unusual western 

 forms, and have given ample opportunity for a more thor- 

 ough study of the habits of local species. 



Visits to the deep clay gullies in the high prairie south- 

 east of Topeka are each year more richly rewarded than the 

 previous year. On April 2, 1904, over sixty specimens of 

 splendida and amoena were taken, and vvith them a specimen 

 each of purpurea and limbalis, and several 12-guttata. On 

 March 24, 1905, in the same locality, were taken eighty-eight 

 specimens of splendida and amcena, three limbalis, one trans- 

 versa, and six 12-guttata; and on March 28, seventy-eight 

 splendida and amoena, one limbalis, one transversa, and a 

 dozen 12-guttata. On other days specimens of purpurea and 

 graminea were taken, grading closely into each other in color, 

 and with them a single audubonii. Two others of the last spe- 

 cies were seen, but flew high with the wind and took refuge 

 in the prairie-grass some distance away. 



Several visits were made in 1904 and 1905 to the sand-dunes 

 by the river east of town, where lepida was taken commonly 

 in 1902 ; but either the big June flood of 1903 or the frequent 

 turning over of the sand by the negroes in their attempts to 

 cultivate the soil had apparently forced the delicate creatures 

 to abandon their home. Not a single lepida has been seen 

 since 1902, though the formosa varieties are as plentiful there 

 as ever. 



The annual Kansas University scientific expeditions to Ari- 

 zona, under charge of Dr. F. H. Snow, which I have had the 

 good fortune to accompany for the past five years, have of- 

 fered exceptional opportunity for studying the Cicindelidse 

 of the territory. Our camping place in 1904 was about twenty 

 miles south of Flagstaff, in Oak Creek canyon, a branch of 

 the Verde river. Though a charming place to camp it proved 

 a poor locality for tiger-beetles, the precipitous walls of the 

 canyon acting as a barrier against their encroachment. But 

 a single species was found, Cicindela maricopa, a variety of 



