Miscellaneous Papers. 215 



COLLECTING IN ARKANSAS. 



By P. A. Hartman. Wichita High School. 



TPvURING July one finds collecting in Arkansas more en- 

 J-^ joyable than on the Kansas plains. At Siloam Springs 

 there is shade — the kind of shade that is refreshing. This, 

 together with plenty of good, healthy water, makes the hot 

 sun more endurable. 



If you go an hour's walk from Siloam Springs to the south- 

 west, your path will be through orchards on rising ground. 

 This rise loses itself abruptly in deep ravines so that you will 

 be surprised to be so suddenly transported from the bright 

 and noisy orchards to the shady solitude of the woods. Some 

 of the ravines are sparsely covered with trees, others are 

 neatly clothed to the bottom, where there may be a spring 

 feeding a merry rivulet or, in place of this, a densely crowded 

 undergrowth. The ravines will lead you into the river valley. 

 To the west of town you will find the prairie, with its farms 

 and groves. 



It is in such a place as this that one may expect to find a 

 great variety of life. 



The purpose of this paper is to give the observations of a 

 week's exploration of this region. 



As to the general distribution of the fauna, we find insects 

 most plentiful on or bordering cultivated ground. The same 

 may be said of the birds, but the reptiles are perhaps more 

 common in the woods. There is very little life in the densely 

 growing woods. 



One of the things that attracted my attention was the great 

 number of beetles called fig-eaters (Allorhina nitida), which 

 go darting like mad through the orchards with the noise of 

 the bumblebees. They stop a few seconds on some tree, but 

 are off again with as much hurry-scurry as before. There was 

 a large box-elder tree in front of the farmhouse where I 

 stayed that was a favorite place for these insects. From a 

 little after sunup the top of this tree would swarm with these 

 beetles, which were coming and going incessantly. At all 

 times they would not come close enough to the ground while 

 on the tree to be caught with a net. Toward sundown they 

 would begin to disappear until all became quiet. 



