308 THE entomologist's record. 



Erythrocephalas and our Lambdas, and what are we going to do now ? 

 Are we going to sit down and arrange our cabinets for next season, 

 varying the programme with occasional rambles in search of the 

 twenty-odd species, many of them of the commonest, that alone are 

 obtainable by the Macro-lepidopterist ? Or shall we not rather expand 

 our knowledge of this wonderful science of ours, and look more closely 

 into those marvellous and, to us, perhaps somewhat contemptibly tiny 

 beings, which go to make up the order Coleoptera ? If we sufficiently 

 bestir ourselves to do this, we shall very soon find that our erstwhile 

 contempt was born, as is too often the case, not from the exquisite 

 little creatures themselves, but from our own ignorance of this, one of 

 the greatest and most varied of the British orders of the Insecta. The 

 great advantage of the study of this order is that there are as many speci- 

 mens, and perhaps even better species, to be obtained during the "closed 

 season " of winter, than in the bright and genial warmth of the most 

 glorious summer weather. This, in all probability, is not in reality 

 the case, but only appears to be so, since many things abounding in 

 May and June will be seen at no other time of the year, the majority, 

 on the other hand, carry on a very spirited existence from the end of 

 one August to the commencement of the next, thus living very much 

 longer in the imago state than do any of the Lepidoptera, not excepting 

 the hybernators. 



A country ramble in November or December becomes a thing of 

 some monotony to the lepidopterist, at all events in England, since 

 his eye travels only from tree-trunk to paling and back — that is to 

 say, of course, when searching for imagines. In pursuit of beetles — 

 also imagines — however, there is not an object throughout a country 

 lane which may not harbour " good things." The very earth of the 

 hedge-bottoms teems with them, and the twigs of the hedge-tops 

 afford great security against the inclemencies of the weather to the 

 enclosed insects. The scattered leaves form a perfect hibernaculum, 

 and the very palings are sometimes riddled, much to their detriment, 

 by the borings of various Teredilia and Scolytidae. One of the very 

 best ways of collecting in the autumn is from fungi. Many exceed- 

 ingly rare things are to be obtained by visiting a Avood — I always 

 think fungi in woods the best kinds for this work — and shaking any 

 pieces of fungus, which you will find the recent rains have caused to 

 spring up abundantly on every side, over anything you happen to 

 have with you, such as an umbrella, newspaper, sweep-net, or even 

 one's pocket-handkerchief which answers the purpose very well and 

 will always wash ! The beetles principally taken by this means are 

 Braclielytra, among which will be large numbers of Homalota, the 

 largest genus of British Coleoptera, and one of the most difficult to 

 identify, but besides these will be found a fair percentage of Clavi- 

 cornia, with a sprinkling, perhaps, of Geodephaga and Teredilia. 



Later, when the fungi have all disappeared, and the iron hand of 

 winter has descended in stern reality, we may still wend our way, chisel 

 in hand, to some lordly poplar or regal beech, and there spend a happy 

 afternoon beneath an overcoat. For many of our very rarest beetles 

 hybernate under the bark of trees, while others, being internal feeders 

 upon the actual wood itself, do not, like the larva of L'osms, hyber- 

 nate at all, but carry on their depredations, which thus become 

 doubly injurious, throughout the whole year. I well remember spend- 



