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PSYCHE. 



ORGAN OF THE CAMBRIDGE ENTOMOLOGICAL CLUB. 



EDITED BY B. PICKMAN MANN. 

 Vol. I.] Cambridge, Mass., January, 1875. [No. 9. 



Re-discovery of Cicindela iimbata Say. 



More than fifty years ago Say described, from the collections 

 of Long's expedition to the Rocky Mountains, an insect under 

 the name of Cicindela Iimbata. As is well known, the collec- 

 tions of Say have all been destroyed, and from that day to 

 this, though half a century has elapsed, and the country, which 

 at that time was the almost unknown confines of the republic, 

 has become its geographical centre, and is as well known as the 

 Atlantic coast was then, no collector has ever taken any such 

 insect, and no doubt the question has arisen in the minds of 

 Entomologists, were the observations of Say in error ? or has 

 the species become extinct ? 



As the Cicindelidae are favorites with collectors, and the spe- 

 cies noted is strikingly different from any known forms, it might 

 be supposed that we had here a case of the extinction of a spe- 

 cies, a thing not unknown among Vertebrates, but for which 

 the data are wanting as yet among insects. 



Last summer, while engaged on the survey of the North 

 Boundary of Nebraska, I visited one of the numerous hills of 

 drifting sand with which a large part of that section is covered, 

 when I saw a Cicindela fly up, which was evidently quite dif- 

 ferent from anything I had ever seen before ; on following it, it 

 alighted on a steep slope of bare sand, where, after some exer- 

 tion, I succeeded in capturing it. By going over the sand, I 

 saw others, and during the time I remained in that vicinity — 

 about an hour — they increased in frequency, a circumstance 

 which I thought due to disturbing them in their hiding places 

 by trampling the sand. 



The ne^t day I contemplated visiting the locality again, but 

 it proved cloudy and unpleasant, and the following day we left 



