IIQ [October, 



Vegetable moth trap frum Brazil. — I have a large plant of Physianthus albicans 

 (Asclepiadce) trailing up the porch at mj front door here, which grows rapidly, and, 

 in the autumn, flowers in profusion. It is one of the most deadly moth-traps I 

 know. Every day I find from two to eight humming-bird hawk-moths caught by 

 the proboscis in the flowers, and they appear to die in about two minutes. I often 

 find other insects dead in the flowers. — W. Simpson, Dartmouth : August 30th, 1878 

 (extracted from "The Field," 7th September, 1878). 



Living Beetle Ornam.ents. — " We have recently seen, on the shoulder of Mrs. J. 

 Eandolph Clay (wife of the Hon. J. Randolph Clay, so well known as a political 

 representative of the United States), a living specimen of a beetle, worn partly as a 

 decoration, partly as a pet, by the ladies of Central America. The tropical custom 

 of confining living luminous insects in gauze, and wearing them in full dress, is 

 doubtless well known to most of our readers ; and the employment of the dead 

 bodies of various species of Bvprestis and other brilliant beetles as natural jewels or 

 adornments for the trimming of dresses is also familiar. But the custom now under 

 notice has, we believe, not before been recorded in this country, though doubtless 

 known to American entomologists, and is exceedingly curious. The beetle employed 

 is not, as might have been expected, one of resplendent hues or brilliant and 

 highly contrasted markings. It is a large and somewhat cumbrous species of the 

 Tenebrionidw OY Heteromera, a Zophems, of considerable rarity in collections, as the 

 genus to which it belongs is restricted to Central America from Mexico to Venezuela, 

 probably living in very arid and desert localities. Mrs. Clay's specimen came from 

 Merida, Yucatan, and is an inch and a half long, something like the well known 

 Pyrophnrus or luminou^s Elater in build, black beneath, with black legs and antennae, 

 and yellowish-grey on the upper side, with elevated shining black spots on the inter- 

 stices of the wing-cases and on the thorax. It is confined by a slight encircling gold 

 band at the base of the wing-cases, to which is fastened a thin flat strip of gold 

 running down the suture, bent under the beetle at the tip, and having attached to it 

 a slight gold chain, which is pinned to the shoulder of the wearer. It was received 

 80 decorated, in what is evidently the fashionable and usual method. A great pecii- 

 liarity in it is its power of living for a very long time without food. Fanciful names 

 are given to it, based upon a belief of its subsisting upon light, air, and other impalpable 

 articles of diet ; but the English naturalist, recalling the records of longevity in our 

 own common cellar-beetle, Blaps, also belonging to the Tenebrionidw, will probably 

 see nothing poetical in this capability of the insect. Mrs. Clay has had her beetle 

 six weeks only, and is ignorant for how long a period it was fasting before being sent to 

 her ; but it has eaten nothing during her ownership or during the voyage. The 

 Mexican ladies amuse themselves by attaching their rings to the chain, and watching 

 the beetle's efi'orts in dragging his precious load. One is irresistibly reminded of 

 Gulliver in the fair toils of the Brobdingnagian princess and her suite." — (Ex- 

 tracted from " The Queen," 2Uh Augxtst, 1878). 



On the larvoB of Lytta vesicatoria. — I succeeded this year in the breeding of four 

 larvfe (triongidina) of the Lytta vesicatoria. 



I got the eggs from a female caught, in copuld, about the 1st of June, and which 

 laid them on the 6th in a little burrow in the earth. The eggs hatched a fort- 



