1910 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 37 



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brown streaks on the wing-covers. They were taken late in June, feeding on the 

 blossom of dogwood. And with every fresh discovery I swelled with pride 

 as I found myself getting more and more intimate with this royal family among 

 beetles, the Longicorns. 



With the passing of May the early elder came to an end, but before it was 

 over the hav^thorns began to bloom all over the neighbourhood. Our first field of 

 investigation was a field, an extensive pasture bordered ion one side by a wood of 

 pine, beech and maple. At first I went all about the farther end of the field 

 wherever the snowy mass of hawthorn bush in full bloom drew me, but I soon 

 found that it was only near the wood that my search was rewarded; the first 

 captures were a couple of Scarabs called Trichius piger, a beetle looking very much 

 like a small bumblebee and extremely active ; it is abundant on blossoms from early 

 in June till the middle of July, and may be found on a great variety of flowers, 

 l^hen I got my first specimen of Dichelonycha elongata, another Scarab, which is 

 particularly fond of basswood foliage, and becomes some seasons a veritable plague. 

 Finally I came to hawthorns on the border of the wood, and here I found several 

 Longicorns feeding. Among them three Lepturas that were new to me, Leptura 

 pub era, L. mutdbilis and L. vibex, of the last two only a single specimen. About 

 the same date I paid a visit to the wood four miles away, to see what guests the 

 hawthorns there were entertaining. On one bush at the edge of the wood I found 

 both sexes of Hoplia trifasciata plentiful, two or three specimens of Dichelonycha, 

 and a lot of Leptura ruficoUis and Cyrtophorus verrucosus; and besides these a 

 new insect that at first I passed over for a fly, till the long antennae betrayed it; 

 these in the female were about the length of the body, in the male twice as long; 

 it was the more easily mistaken for a fly in that its wing-covers were reduced to 

 a mere pair of epaulets or shoulder pads. It proved to be the Longicorn Molor- 

 chus himaculatus, and was very abundant throughout June on several sorts of 

 blossom. On another bush at the edge of the wood I found a regular colony of 

 Chrysomelians busy in the blossoms. I sent three of these to Guelph, where they 

 were identified as varieties of Orsodacna atra; in June, 1907, I found the same 

 beetle on hawthorn blossom at Lakefield, and I have taken it also on viburnum; 

 in no case did I find the normal form of 0. atra, though a few of my specimens 

 approximated very closely to it. 



A curious feature about the hawthorn and its guests is that some shrubs 

 apparently as favourably situated as others and in full bloom, were deserted and 

 others crowded. It may prove that some species attract beetles and others do not; 

 Gray's New Manual enumerates 65 species of hawthorn in N. A., while in Sar- 

 gent's Monograph on the Crataegus in some parts of Ontario alone (as published in 

 last year's Wellington F. N. Bulletin), no less than 95 species are distinguished. 

 The results of closer determination in the species of plant hosts might prove in- 

 teresting. 



An encouraging thing about this sort of collecting is that seasons vary in the 

 maturing of both hosts and guests, so that often you will find species frequenting 

 blossoms that the year before they did not visit, and sometimes you will come 

 across an entirely new insect. Two seasons ago, for instance, early in June, we 

 found a strange beetle abundant on dogwood; it proved to be CalUmoxys, a first 

 cousin of Molorchus; in this genus the wing-covers are not short as in Molorchus, 

 but awl shaped, so that the inner margins do not lie together in a straight line. 

 Again this last season I made a new find on hawthorn in the shape of a small oak- 

 pruner (ElapMdion). Much, too, may result from search in a new neighbourhood; 



