24 THE REPOET OF THE No. 36 



collecting. A curious observation was made on this date, June 11th; it was a dull 

 day and the wind was chilly; I captured only eleven specimens of M. gibhulus, and 

 these were all taken, alive; but it proved impossible to secure a mating pair; on 

 measuring the antenna^ I found them all short — three-quarters the body length ; 

 they were all females, and 1 infer that in cool weather the males are le^s acdve and 

 do not visit their favorite pollen blossoms; both before and after -that date, on 

 bright, hot days, the males were almost as plentiful as the females. 



Professional duties combined with a wet week end to interrupt field observa- 

 tions between June 12th and 23rd. On the latter date I captured the first of a 

 series of the longicorn Psenoc&rus supernotatus ; I had previously captured but one 

 or two isolated specimens at long intervals ; this season I captiired one en willow, 

 three on sumach, and four or five on newly fallen balm of gilead ; these last were 

 all of a very small variety, the others of normal habit. The specimen captured on 

 the 23rd was found resting on a thick limb of willow that was dying from the 

 attacks of Cryptorliyncus lapatln. On this date while examining the trunt of a 

 large felled spruce that had been cut into three logs and stripped of its branches 

 I saw what at first I took to be an elater crawling on the bark ; its movements and 

 the appearance of its antennae, however, being suggestive of Asemum, it suddenly 

 occurred to me that it was on spruce I had once captured Tetropium cinnamoptenim. 

 This insect is usually parti-coloured, the head and thorax piceous and the wing- 

 covers light cinnamon brown, whereas the creature before me was all piceous, and 

 both smaller and narrower than any of Tetropium cinnamopterum 1 had ever seen. 

 It proved, however, to be that species. For some time I could see only this one 

 specimen, but just as I was going away I caught sight of a second, small and 

 unicolorous like the first. Just disappearing over the far side of the log. I raced 

 round the log to intercept it, but when I got there to my amazement th:^r:' was no 

 insect, either on the log or on the ground. Now the bark of a spru-^e is rough and 

 flaky; more or less idly I began lifting the flakes with a jack-knife, when suddenly 

 from under one of them raced into view one of the parti-coloured forms of 

 T. cinnamoptenim, followed by its mate, the small piceous insect I had been looking 

 for. Acting on this hint I continued to prise up the flakes of bark and succeeded 

 in flushing seven or eight of the insects, of which I captured five; once a pair in 

 conjunction, both sexes being of the small, piceous form. It was really astonishing 

 that pairs of this insect should lie so close under the comparatively small, tight- 

 fitting flakes of bark, but on reflection I had to acknowledge that I had captured 

 ^)nce over a score of the robust Physocnemum hi'evilineuni pairing just as j-nugly 

 m the interstices of elm bark. Newly felled spruce, then, in the latter part of June 

 is evidently a breeding ground for this uncommon longicorn T. cinnamopfenirv. 



I paid several visits to the spruce, but it was only on the 23rd and 24th of 

 June that T foimd this beetle. My perseverance was, however, amply rewarded; ' 

 on July 6th T captured near the axil of a broken branch a specimen of Meri\im 

 proteus : it is hardly safe to generalize from a unique capture, but the date and 

 habitat of felled spruce trunk are perhaps worth noting by Canadian collectors. 

 The descriptions which refer to this insect as yellow-brown have evidently been 

 taken from cabinet specimens ; in the live insect, head and thorax are rich violet, 

 and the elytra appear as though dipped in violet dye, the tinge of which may be 

 caught anywhere on their surface if held in the proper light ; the elytra being 

 thinner and translucent, appear .less dark in hue than the thorax whose density 

 renders it quite opaque. The thighs are bright yellow, almost the shade of the root 

 fibre of Goldthread (^op/Ts trifolia) and very conspicuous, Thi^ matter of colora- j 

 tion in published descriptions is very misleading. For instance, Encydops 



