86 THE REPORT OF THE No. 36 



a very different creature. I well remember during my first visit to the Algonquin 

 Park how one day I went over with the late Dr. Brodie to the little land-locked 

 Cranberry Lake in the heart of the hardwood forests. It was a glaring hot day, 

 with the sun at its height and perfectly calm. We rowed a boat down to the 

 cranberry marsh at the foot of the lake, where all sorts of botanical treasures 

 awaited us. On the way we passed through a patch of water-lilies and flushed a 

 covey of Donacias ; there must have been hundreds, leaping and flying from the lily- 

 pads, striking the sides of the boat, and alighting sometimes in the water, occasion- 

 ally on our clothes, darting and glittering in the sun like sparks from the molten 

 surface of the cauldron of heat formed by this woodland lake at high noon beneath 

 an August sun. The activity of movement and extraordinary vitality in the sun's 

 heat are not common among the Chrysonielians, but they are among some of the 

 Longicorns, with which the Donacias have a close affinity. Lords, for the nonce, 

 of all three elements, earth, air and water, they moved easily about all three, per- 

 fectly at home and at their ease. On cooler days or when the breeze blows, they 

 . love to sit on their beloved lily-pads, like miniature batrachians, their thorax 

 and head partly raised and their antennae thrust fosward alertly, something like 

 the asparagus beetle when it scents danger. 



We shall now stroll south about a mile, along the edge of a wood we call the 

 North Wood, a wood sacred by many memories, rich in flowers, the home of some 

 rare orchids, in and about which I have found more than twenty species of ferns 

 and a wide range of warblers and other birds at the spring migration ; it is, besides, 

 the scene of many of my best captures among the Coleoptera. Ten minuies' walk 

 brings us to where the wood narrows close to a division fence, running west across 

 meadow-lands to the railway. Just here stands on the edge of the wood a haw- 

 thorn, whose blossom for some reason or other has proved a beetle-trap or bait for 

 an extraordinary number of species. It was on this blossom that I first captured 

 specimens of the Orsodacna, our representative of Tribe II, and on the top-rail of 

 the snake fence beside it, I took one of the few specimens I have ever seen of 

 Syneta, another of the four genera contained in this tribe. The Orsodacna (or 

 Bud-gnawer) is said by Blatchley to feed on willow blossoms, and this season as 

 early as April I was on the look-out for it about clumps of willows in bloom, but 

 the only thing new to me that I observed was a small moth dancing up and down 

 in lively zig-zag flight over the willow-bushes; it was almost as small as a clothes- 

 moth, blackish with a cream or white bar near the apex of the wing. From its 

 extremely long hair-like antennae, I should judge it a species of Adela. We have 

 but one species of Orsodacna and I have always found it on hawthorn, twice in gTeat 

 numbers, once here and once at Lakefield. The specific name is atra (black) but it 

 is very variable and specimens sent by me to Gruelph, taken all at the g'ame time off 

 this hawthorn bush some years ago were returned labelled under no less than four 

 varietal forms. The pigmentation of the elytra, normally black, becomes less 

 heavy and the wing-covers show light brown with darker disks and markings. In 

 some of its forms the blend of colours is very pretty; the beetle is narrow-oblong 

 and the texture of its upper surface is of an oily smoothness. 



Let us cross the meadow west to the railway track ; near the fence that extend 

 from the hawthorn tree to the railway, on the south side are some sand-drifts whert 

 I have captured no less than six species of Tiger-beetle at various times in the 

 season. The meadow to the north is less sandy and springs ooze out from its 

 surface and meander over the grassy slopes : here in September the meadow is 

 white and fragrant with Spiranthes cermm, the nodding Ladies' Tresses, one of onr 



