MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 425 



NOTES ON COLLECTING CICINDELIDJE. 



By Edobne G. Smyth, Topeka. 

 Read before the Academy, at Manhattan, November 27, 1903. 



FOR the past three years my chum, LeRoy Rauch, and I have 

 collected and carefully studied the habits of the species of this 

 family, especially those found in the vicinity of Topeka. 



In the spring of 1901, about the 8th of March, we took our first 

 specimens of Cicindela splendida and amoena, on a clay bank at the 

 edge of timber, and throughout March, April and May we found 

 repanda and vulgaris common in sandy fields near the river. 



In the early part of June we enjoyed a week of most successful 

 collecting on Middle creek, near Ottawa, Kan. There, among numer- 

 ous other species, we found C. sexguttata in its many forms ; first on 

 a rocky, wooded bluff on the east bank of the creek, and later through- 

 out the woods, especially along the unused roads and wood paths. 

 Those taken were all green, bearing not the least tendency toward the 

 blue form, violacea. A few types were taken. Early in the morning, 

 when the underbrush in the woods was wet with dew, these insects, 

 being unable to fly, were easily taken as they ran through the grass. 

 But as the day advanced and the grass dried they became more active, 

 so that by ten o'clock they would take wing with ease. A single 

 splendida and a few repanda were taken there on the creek bank. 



Upon our return home on the 15th of June, the sand-bars in the 

 Kaw river, which had been slightly flooded during our absence, were 

 covered with a thin layer of wet mud, and with numerous pools of 

 water. Around the pools, and where the mud was wettest, ponderosa, 

 cuprascens, and macra swarmed. They were all difficult of capture ; 

 ponderosa because of its extreme wariness, and the other two because 

 of the fact that they fly so close to the ground. These three species 

 remained numerous on the sand-bars for the rest of June, July, and 

 August, a few stragglers staying into September. On account of the 

 very high water during the two following years, 1902 and 1903, these 

 species have not since been taken here in such plenty. 



In addition to these we found a form of formosa, familiar to eastern 

 Kansas collectors, intermediate between formosa and generosa, com- 

 mon in sandy fields on the first bottom of the Kaw. With it we found 

 punctulata, and a form of scutellaris approaching lecontei. The for- 

 mosa variety remained common the rest of the summer and autumn, 

 while the scutellaris variety soon disappeared, but reappeared again 

 in September, and flourished from then till frost. 



