326 NA T U RE-STUD Y RE VIE W [16 :8— Nov. , 1920 



out any apparent reason, the right-hand elytra in the specimen 

 shown in the cut turned a deep earth-brown while it was in my 

 possession, and this happened while it was in the usual insect-box 

 used in museimis and elsewhere. 



Mr. Hoffman, a young friend of mine, recently collected a female 

 of this beetle at Great Falls, southern Maryland (Potomac River) ; 

 it was walking on the ground. Personally, I have only seen them 

 in nature in southern Louisiana. The places to look for them in 

 the Southern States are in old stumps and decayed logs, and the 

 people in that section of the country generally call them the Spotted 

 Horn-beetle. A fellow with a still larger horn — in the case of the 

 male — has been described as another species; it occurs, I believe, 

 in various localities in the West. 



In the West Indies we find the Hercules-beetle of this group ; it 

 has a very long horn on its thorax, and is the largest living true 

 insect in all the world at present known to us {Dynastes hercules). 

 D. neptunas is also a big representative of the group, and is found 

 in Columbia. This latter insect is black, while D. hercules is of a 

 fine gray color, inclining to olive. Its horns are enormous and 

 very long — indeed, fully six inches in some specimens. Nearly all 

 the species, however, of the Dynastince are either black or dark 

 brown. In some of the genera the long horns of the males are 

 bifurcated distally, or really bidentate. in still others the head 

 horn is the most conspicuous one by all odds, while the one devel- 

 oped on the thorax is much subordinated. A fairly good figure of 

 Dynastes neptunas is given by Kirby (Plate XL, fig. i); and the 

 other species have been figured by various entomologists. 



BJrd Song 



Entre nous, 



Je suis heureux, 

 Et plus, que voulez vous? 



~T. D. A. Cockerell. 



A typographical error in our last issue gives us excuse for printing again 

 this exquisite little poem. — Editor. 



