46 THE KEPOKT OF THE ]^o. 36 



Phasmid, Diapheromera femorata, an Orthopterous insect next of kin to the Pray- 

 ing Mantids; it occurred not infrequently that season about the Rideau on bass- 

 wood; still more abundant on basswood leaves were the larvae of Chrysomela 

 scdlaris, and I was rearing some in captivity. While scanning the underside of the 

 foliage just above my head I noticed a leaf through which the sunlight passed 

 imperfectly; there was a small opaque area near the centre, in short, something 

 rather smaller than a house fly was casting its shadow on the upper surface. I drew 

 the leaf cautiously down and surprised a diminutive longicorn sunning itself in the 

 middle of the leaf; unfortunately, I surprised it in more senses than one, for, in 

 response to a stimulus of self-preservation, it instantly collapsed and, tumbling 

 down the leaf in a series of somersaults, like the clown in a pantomime, disappeared 

 from the stage. For nearly half an hour I hunted among the debris at my feet 

 and at last discovered the little harlequin playing 'possum under a twig. 



At first I took this beetle for Amphionyclia flammata, to which superficially 

 it bears an extraordinary resemblance; but I found the ungues or claws (which 

 are divaricate) simple instead of cleft; as they are distinctly cleft in Amphionycha, 

 the foot appearing to end in four minute claws, it became certain my capture was 

 Eupogonius subarmatus. 



Another form of incidental capture is where beetles of a carnivorous habit 

 resort to foliage in search of food. I have once taken Calosoma scrutator, and 

 several times Calosoma calidum on the foliage of the white pine ; these enterprising 

 ground beetles poaching on the arboreal preserves for caterpillars; many of the 

 diurnal fireflies, which are carnivorous, may be found resorting to foliage for the 

 same purpose, and the CoccinelUdce or Lady-birds are regularly so taken. One 

 July I found two or three species of Lady-bird resorting in large numbers to an 

 asparagus bed where they were doing yeoman service in devouring larvse as they 

 fed on the foliage; on the menu of their banquet if not the piece de resistance was 

 Crioceris asparagi, and they were feasting royally. 



Passing from incidental captures to those where the insect was found on its 

 food-plant, I shall begin with an insect I saw in July three years ago which did 

 not devour the leaves, but using its jaws as a pair of scissors, cut them and rolled 

 them up into cylinders. I mean the weevil, Attelahus analis, the oakleaf roller. 



I was examining the leaves of various plants, herbaceous and woody, along the 

 railway track some 12 miles north of Port Hope — especially willow shrubs and oak- 

 seedlings whose foliage was lush and tender, the leaves being, many of them, still 

 pink and soft — when I noticed a curculio with black head and snout, the thorax 

 and elytra of a shining chestnut red. I recognized it from having seen cabinet 

 specimens as one of the oak-leaf rollers, and on diligent search I found it fairly 

 abundant and always on young leaves, which no doubt proved more pliable and 

 easily worked by this ingenious little artificer. It was not easy to see much work 

 done, as the beetle is easily alarmed and drops from the leaf if approached too 

 closely. I was able in one case, however, to watch the actual process of rolling! 

 and in another some of the preliminary work of cutting. Observations published 

 in an American journal of entomology go to prove that though the act is instinctive 

 and involves neither practice nor imitation, it is not absolutely perfect; leaves 

 have been found cut in more than one place and then abandoned as unsatisfactory. 



There is a very interesting account of a British leaf-roller (Rhynchites 

 hetulce) given by Sharpe in the Cambridge Natural History. The female beetle 

 goes to the margin of the leaf — at the base, but some way out from the stalk — 

 and cuts through the leaf from the margin to the mid-rib somewhat in the shape 

 of an upright letter S; it then crosses the mid-rib and cuts through the other half 



