1911 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 47 



of the leaf to the margin somewhat in the shape of a prostrate letter S. The 

 beetle then returns to the margin where it began cutting and, much as a grocer 

 makes a paper funnel for sugar, rolls the edge over round an ideal axis till it 

 brings it to the mid-rib ; here it holds the funnel in position with the legs of one 

 side while, with the other three, it draws the further side of the leaf towards it 

 and wraps it around the part of the funnel already formed. When it finds the 

 material stiff to work with it bites the surface of the leaf with its mandibles or 

 pushes it into position with its feet, adjusting means to ends like a sailor at work 

 in the shrouds furling canvas. It then enters the funnel, bites two or three small 

 pits into the leaf, deposits an egg in each and then emerging completes the funnel 

 by folding over and tucking in the tip of the leaf. 



Mr. Sharpe, in comment, points out that the insect has never seen a funnel in 

 its life and yet manages to make one perfectly the very first time of trying. But 

 the author's perplexity is partly due to his confusing a purely instinctive act with 

 an act of intelligence (vide the Peckhams' book on Wasps). How can an insect 

 be a highly-skilled engineer, working with mathematical accuracy and on a scientific 

 plan? It is an insoluble problem if you try to state your answer in terms of 

 intelligence and individual consciousness. But place it among impulsive acts, 

 involuntary and more or less mechanical, common to all members of the species, 

 and you can give a fairly satisfactory explanation in terms of instinct. 



Among insects especially are found instincts whose perfection is simply 

 diabolical, often involving a highly complex series of acts performed hut once in 

 the whole life-time of the individual and therefore admitting of neither practice 

 nor imitation. To look upon such acts as the result of conscious intelligence is 

 absurd; the intellect has no place here and would be simply a meddler, likely to 

 bungle and make a botch of the artificer's work. On the other hand a whole- 

 hearted Darwinian like Weismann has no difficulty in applying his great principle 

 of selection to such an act and seeing in it one more beautiful illustration of how 

 all things living in the world, whether flora or fauna, are adapted to their 

 environment. 



As I have begun with one of the weevils, which come at the end of the Coleop- 

 tera in classification, I shall pass to a family not far removed from the weevils, the 

 Blister Beetles (Meloidce), many of which in the mature state occur abundantly on 

 foliage and are very destructive. Four species of the genus Epicauta are known in 

 Ontario ; some of them occasionally attack the leaves of the potato, but more usually 

 they feed harmlessly on flowers like golden rod and helianthus or the low herbage hy 

 river banks. I have not seen any of this genus and think it uncommon east of 

 Toronto, or at least in the neighborhood of Port Hope. One species of an allied 

 genus {Macrohasis unicolor), which also attacks the potato, I have found in great 

 abundance about Port Sydney in low grounds feeding and breeding on the foliage 

 of meadow-rue. The family consists of two tribes, Cantharidae and Meloidae; 

 the former all have power of flight and are frequently found about foliage or 

 flowers; in the latter the wings are abortive or entirely absent, and the beetle's 

 most daring excursion into the realm of air consists in crawling up a grass-blade or 

 the stem of some herbaceous plant. One or two species of Meloe or Oil-beetle are 

 frequently found early in the spring and late in the summer, but the insect does 

 not appear to eat foliage. Both tribes of this family are famous for their pos- 

 session of a principle known as cantharidine, whence they are called Blister beetles, 

 some of the species being of great medicinal value. 



A more remarkable feature about them which they share with some of their 

 neighbours, the Mordellidcr, is the phenomenon of hyper-metamorphosis. They 



