1914 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 91 



at least the man knew what he was trying to bag. There were big risks, it was a 

 daring shot, but I took it and grabbed the insect as it was pushing down behind 

 the collar of my neglige. An awful moment, while I waited for telegraphic com- 

 munication from my neck to my inner consciousness of the sensation of five inches 

 of hatpin jabbed viciously in to the quick and centre of one's being, that matter-of- 

 fact people call a wasp-sting; but there was no telegram, this was the hundredth 

 chance, and sure enough, when I came to look at my capture, it was what I had 

 been looking for — Chrysomela scalaris. Where had it come from? I am certain 

 there was none on the basswood; it had simply dropped out of pure cussedness on 

 to my head, I presume from the sky. Next season I found three more species, 

 one on willows very like Chr. philadelphica of the dogwood, but with the front and 

 sides of the thorax margined with cream; I have taken a great many specimens of 

 this beetle in various places, always on the willow; it is Chr. higshyana. The 

 second new species was a smaller member of the genus called Chr. elegans, first 

 found early in the season crawling on railway ties, which are not its food-plant, 

 but afterwards found feeding in abundance on water smart-weed about the surface 

 of a stream a couple of miles south-east of here. 



There is another species of small size closely resembling this, called Chr. 

 suturalis. I have never discovered the food plant to which this beetle resorts 

 about Port Hope, but I have twice found a stray specimen on grass-blades. One 

 year in August when I returned from my holidays, I was looking over my friend's 

 collection of Chrysomelas, mentally checking off their food-plants as my eye roved 

 from species to species; basswood, dogwood, willow, water smartw^eed and so on, 

 when suddenly, my attention was arrested by a whole row of fine specimens of this 

 beetle. "Hullo," I exclaimed, "where did you get these?" "Oh, on the beach, 

 just a few days ago." In an instant I had registered a silent vow, and next 

 morning hastened off to fulfil it in our old stand-by. the North Wood, equipped 

 for the sacrifice with some sandwiches and a cyanide bottle. All the morning I 

 searched beech trees diligently, without success, and all the afternoon the same, and 

 at last went home, weary and footsore, having got nothing but aching eyes and a 

 stiff neck. In the evening I was around again at my friend's collection. "Are 

 you sure that you got those beetles on the beech ?" I asked. " Oh, yes, and they 

 were in fine condition ; in fact one of them was still alive. I guess a thunder- 

 storm the day before had blown them out over the lake ; when I went down the 

 south-east wind was washing them up on the beach." My beech with an " e," was 

 his beach with an "a" : he had taken his specimens on the lake shore. Disappoint- 

 ments like these are bound to occur ; I have spent days in search among ispiraea 

 and hazels which the collectors say are the invariable food of certain species and 

 so far the result has been an absolute blank. 



We will move east about a mile, past Davison's old chair-factory on the Eice 

 Lake Eoad, up hill, down dale, and up hill again as far as Bethel. Here we turn 

 south down a grass lane to a wood of pine, oak and maple, and skirt along the edge 

 Df this wood, keeping close to the fence. Notice that sandy knoll in the wood, 

 just west of us, with a large burrow at the top ; I was approaching this' one day 

 from the south, gathering morsels as I went, when T felt that curious sense of being 

 watched that we sometimes have. Looking up I saw what I took to be a young 

 eollie dog, reddish-brown, sharp-faced, staring straight at me ; as soon as it saw 

 me look at it, it made a movement that is very characteristic of the collie, dropped 

 flat on the ground, its head couched between the outstretched fore-paws and so lay. 



