BY EDWARD DOUBLEDAY. 283 



high, and eighteen feet in circumference, was the size of the 

 majority. There was no brush-wood ; but in the open spaces 

 there grew a great abundance of Veronica prcealta ; I am not 

 sure that is the right specific name: on its flowers were 

 swarms of D. Archlppus, and some few Cynthia Hunter a, but I 

 was determined now to collect Coleoptera. On the flowers were 

 innumerable Telephori, or some nearly allied genus. Almost 

 all the insects I took at Cincinnati were captured in this one 

 walk. I hunted well the rotten logs and stumps, and alto- 

 gether took a good number of Coleoptera. The Galeritce and 

 Passali I found in the stumps, under the bai'k, but the greater 

 part of these were immature; they were very plentiful. Sep- 

 tember, here, is evidently the great Coleoptera and butterfly 

 month. An old rotten plane-tree, which had apparently fallen 

 about two years, furnished me with the smaller Coleoptera, 

 also a very considerable variety of wood and fungus 

 feeders, as Anthribites, &c. Two or three days afterwards I 

 visited the same spot again, with much less success. I took 

 a walk to the north of the town with T. G. Lea, the brother of 

 J. Lea, the great American conchologist — par nobile fratrum 

 in real truth, if kindness, private worth, and scientific know- 

 ledge make any noble. We were rather more occupied with 

 plants than insects. Li this walk I found hundreds of Lyttea 

 atrata on Acneida cannahina; they had completely stripped 

 it of leaves. It is wonderful in what profusion some species 

 are found in this country, though, generally speaking, there are 

 few individuals compared with the number of species. 



We next collected at Wanborough. Here the prairies had 

 clothed themselves with flowery robes; hundreds of species of all 

 colours were mingled ; it was a waving mass of flowers : still, in- 

 sects were not numerous, except some few butterflies. In Eng- 

 land, at the same season, every branch of Aster is covered with 

 Eristalides, Syrphi, and Helophili : here scarcely one of these 

 was to be seen. There were a few fine Hymenoptera on the 

 Solidagines ; also a beautiful Clytus,^ and a small Cetonia,^ not 

 very plentiful, though we afterwards found the latter common 

 in the neighbourhood of Lower Alton. I imagine that the 

 nearly annual burning of the grass of these prairies diminishes 

 the number of insects, or altogether destroys them. I think 



^ CIi/Ihs Mams, Say. ' CcIuh'm sejinlcliialis, Fabr. 



