Notes upon the Habit of Pleocoma. 



By J. J. Rivers. 



(Univt-rsity of C;ililoriu;i.) 



It is known that the autumn lain, wlien copious, makes the Pleocoma 

 season and during the hitler pait ol last week from the I4lh to the 17th 

 of November there was a rain-fall (jf five inches. The i8th was a fine 

 Pleocoma day with warmth and sunshine. 1 visited well-known haunts 

 of/'. Behreiisi \nn without reward. I found some burrows tliat had the 

 correct look of a beetle tunnel but my tools were unequal to a proper 

 investigation. The same day, meeting a friend, I was informed he had 

 a '"bug" for me that wlis drowned in a i)oe)l, lormed bv the heavy rain. 

 This [)roved to be a large male of/*. Belirensi. Mr. Oscar Baron fi)und 

 that P. fimbriata took wing in the rain, which observation is new. The 

 late Dr. [. L. Leconte, in a letter some \ears ago, told me to try for the 

 capture of Pleocoma by the means of artificial light in the night time. 

 This method was not credited by some of my confreres because the general 

 experience had been to find them flung in the day time and usually on 

 the first fine day following the first heavy rain of the season. But the ex- 

 perience of Mr. Oscar Baron again steps in and corroborates Dr. j. L. 

 Leconte's account of the habit of flying b}' night. Mr. Baron occupied 

 a tent during a rain-storm in November, 1887, and while taking his 

 evening meal was surprised by a visitation of a number of P. fimbriata 

 enteiing his tent, charging upon his light and e.xtinguishing it and then 

 falling into his soup — thus becoming an unruly visitor. 



These observations go to show that the habit of /'/e'ocowa is not 

 strictly diurnal, nor is it nocturnal, but that their habit is to travel both 

 by day and night and that, too, either in the sunshine or in the rain. 

 November 21st, 1888. 



A New Pleocoma. 



Bv J. J. Rivers. 



(University of California.) 



This insect through the form of its antenna? shows a special affinit}- 

 with two others of the genus and these three possessing fundamental 

 correlated characters naturally come together as as a specialised section. 

 The three referred to are P. Rickseckeri, P. fimbriata and the one now 

 to be described. The new one is most like P. Rickseckeri. 



Pleocoma puncticollis, n. sp. 



Broadly oval, shinins^ black, fimbriate with long black hair, havint; a tendency 

 to rustincss. Head small, eyes large, clypeal liorn reflexed bifurcate w deeply 



