2o6 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 



THE HABITS OF AMERICAN CICINDELID^. 



BY H. F. WICKHAM, IOWA CITY, IOWA. 



When we consider that the tiger beetles are perhaps more general 

 favorites with collectors than any others, it is surprising how little has 

 been made known of their habits. A bare statement of locality, with, 

 perhaps, a date, is all the information usually given, and an entomolo- 

 gist visiting a region known as the habitat of several species might 

 well miss taking many of them through lack of knowledge of the 

 peculiar conditions under which alone certain ones occur. 



From time to time certain writers have given short notes, chiefly in 

 the publications of local societies which are often difficult of access., 

 on the species occurring in their neighborhood. In this way a great 

 deal of interesting information has been handed down, but unfortu- 

 nately nearly all the material of this character has referred to the 

 beetles found in a restricted, if rich, district and the number of species 

 whose habits have been recorded is, after all, quite far from numerous. 



Since the time of Thomas Say, two papers of a revisional or mono- 

 graphic nature have treated the North American species of Cicindelidae. 

 The first, from the pen of Dr. Le Conte gave short notes as to the 

 conditions under which some were taken, while the second, by 

 Schaupp, added a very little more of this nature. Perhaps the tiger 

 beetles of Kansas and the adjacent states have received more biograph- 

 ical attention than those of any other portion of the continent, and we 

 find articles treating of their lives from the pens of Professors Snow 

 and Popenoe, Dr. Williston, Messrs. Cooper, Brous, Knaus and Jones. 

 Most of these papers came out in the Transactions of the Kansas 

 Academy of Science. In California Mr. Dunn and Dr. Blaisdell have 

 both contributed to "Zoe" remarks on the Pacific species. In the 

 east, nearly all the published information refers to the forms found 

 about the collecting grounds of the New York and Philadelphia 

 entomologists, with here and there some scattering items from else- 

 where. The chief contributors from this district are, as far as I have 



