58 THE REPORT OF THE No. 19 



for nocturnal visitors and so missed a golden opportunity. However, there 

 were a number of basswood stumps in the clearing where I made my first 

 capture and from these I got several more specimens. 



About the last day of June in the same season while struggling from 

 a tamarack swamp in which I had found a rare fern {Botrychiinn nnvplex), 

 I noticed a falling and decaying trunk of elm and on removing some bark 

 I found it infested with a larva closely resembling that of Saperda vestita; 

 I took one that appeared nearly full grown, with some of the rotten inner 

 bark, and succeeded in rearing it ; some three weeks later it emerged from 

 the pupa as the elm-borer (Saperda trident ata) . I have taken only one other 

 specimen of this beetle ; it settled one fine Sunday night in June on a supper 

 table at which I sat, a guest; the entomologist, however, would not be denied, 

 and in spite of looks of outraged propriety on the part of my fellow guests, 

 and some embarrassment (not mine, but my hostess'), I produced a cyanide 

 bottle and captured the insect. 



Early in July I went to Oliver's Ferry, on the Rideau, and in a day or 

 two chanced upon a spot that proved a regular treasure house to the young 

 collector ; it was at the side of a path through a wood of young growth, mostly 

 basswood and maple. Here lay a log of basswood with the bark still on it, 

 close by the stump from which it had been cut, and a pile of basswood split 

 and stacked. In the bark of the stump and the log I found larva and pupae 

 of the Saperda vestita; some pupae that I took home lived and from two or 

 three I secured specimens of the imago. In the hot sunshine beetles lit on 

 the log and on the wood pile, and I tried the experiment of laying detached 

 pieces of bark on the stump, the log, and the split wood: sometimes sand- 

 wiching bits of bark between sticks of the wood pile. This simple con- 

 trivance of bait and trap yielded splendid results for over a week, at the end 

 of which time the bait was filched bv the sun drying all the moisture out. 

 My captures comprised an Elater as large as Alaus oculatus and dark pitchy 

 brown in colour; two specimens of a Chalcophora, 3 or 4 of Dicerca divari- 

 cata (Fig. 11), and 15 of a Chi-i/sohothris about the size of the apple borer 

 (Ch. femorata) ; a dozen or more of a blackish weevil akin to the strawberry 

 weevil, some' two dozen specimens of Eajjsalis minuta\, sexes evenly divided 

 25 specimens, of Parandra hrunnea, one .specimen <<f Tragosoma Harrisii, and 

 a beautiful specimen of the little Amphionycha flainmata; this last Dr. 

 Bethune tells me, has seldom, if ever, been reported from Ontario, and it may 

 therefore be interesting to some of you to know that I captured a second 

 specimen of the same beetle about three days later, sunning itself on a leaf of 

 basswood, within 50 yards of the first capture. It was a bright, calm day 

 in July when I captured the first, and very hot with the sun almost at its 

 zenith, and the log on which the insect lit was bathed in sunshine ; small as 

 the creature is, the sharp click with which it settled was distinctly audible. 

 As the basswood pile was beginning to fail me, I happened on a clearing 

 where some small maples had been felled. Finding the stumps still moist, 

 I laid chips and bark about their tops. This yielded me several new species — 

 a beetle marked like the ^fegalodachne, but smaller and with the ground- 

 colour light brown instead of dark chestnut: 3 or 4 specimens of a beetle 

 allied to the weevils, I think one of the Antlirihidae ; and, settling on a stump 

 m the sunshine, a magnificent specimen of Purpuricenm^ humeralis, a longi- 

 corn of great beauty. 



At the end of August I was out fern-hunting at Lake Dalhonsie, about 

 20 miles north of Perth. From a stump of white pine I took the pupa? of a 

 longicorn which later emerged as Rhagium, lineatum,, and while raising some 

 chips from the top of a fresh and resiny stump of white pine I drove 



