144 NOTES ON COLEOPTERA. 
obtained by sugaring old trees, and so attracting them at night out of 
their burrows. In winter, sifting old leaves over paper will often produce 
many rare things, especially Pselaphide and Scydmcenide. Moss, too, 
is very productive, and the taller tufts of grass, either in winter or 
summer, if dug up carefully (here our fern trowel again comes into play) 
and shaken over paper, will never fail to put something into our bottles 
if all else fail. The damp bottom layer of a haystack in the coldest 
weather (as we might naturally expect) will be found, as a rule, full of 
Coleoptera and Hemiptera. 
The grass cut from our lawns and stored in the sun is a very good 
trap for several rare species—a single hot bed will almost produce 
work enough for a whole season, and its effect is heightened by putting a 
little moss in one corner ;—the latter is an excellent trap for Euplecti; 
many people find these hard to get a series of, but I have seen them 
in numbers by adopting this plan. Dead birds and animals contain 
Necrophaga in abundance; heaps of decaying sea weed on the 
sea shore should always be examined, as many species, never found 
elsewhere, occur in such places, and ordinary species are found in 
profusion. 
When a tree has been cut down in the autumn it should always be 
carefully watched in the spring when the sap rises, as many species 
(Epurza,Ips,Longicornes,&c.,) come to feed on the juice. Old granaries and 
meal boxes, old houses and old cupboards, old vessels and old sea piles 
all possess their beetle inhabitants ; the small weevils known as granary 
beetles are amongst the most destructive of our Coleoptera, and often 
do incalculable harm to stored grain. 
There is only one other locality that I would here speak of, and 
that is ants’ nests. Various beetles live in ants’ nests and in ants’ nests 
only. The relations that they bear to their hosts are not yet discovered, 
but they are on the most friendly terms; in fact, on a nest being 
disturbed, one of the first cares of the ants seems to be for their 
protégés, and they may be seen carrying off beetles larger than them- 
selves to a place of safety. 
Midland Naturalists have a very good opportunity of working this 
group, for the ants’ nests abound in Bewdley Forest and elsewhere, and 
contain many good species. 
As a rule there is no doubt that the Midlands have not been so 
productive of Coleoptera or Hemiptera as the Southern districts and 
the coasts. This isin a great measure owing to the general character 
of the soil—for chalk and sand always produce more species,—but there 
is many a spot and many a district in the Midlands, hitherto unworked, 
that would prove well worth the labour expended upon it. More workers 
are wanted, and if they come forward the Midlands will soon be able to 
bear a very fair comparison, to say the least of it, with the so-called 
more favoured districts. 
