186 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
[The first question is easily answered; the second is a 
problem more difficult of solution. The insect is Chelifer 
cancroides. J once found it in vast numbers under the bark of 
a willow tree on the banks of the New River. They are said 
to feed on minute Acari, but lam unable to confirm this. 
The usual situation is suspended to the leg of a fly by means 
of its extraordinary legs, which remind one of the claws to a 
scorpion or of a lobster, on a very diminutive scale. When 
allowed to crawl on a sheet of white paper their claws, or 
chele, are held in a remarkable and rather threatening 
attitude, forcibly reminding one of the attitude of a scorpion, 
a resemblance which the general structure of the creature 
serves to increase, and indeed which induced Dr. Leach to 
arrange it with the scorpions, and in close proximity with the 
spiders. Still we have to deal with its strange propensity to 
settle itself on the legs of flies. It is of course very natural 
to suppose that these flies, having a decided weakness for 
settling on the trunks of willows, and that these scorpion-like 
creatures having a similar weakness for the toes of a fly 
should fix themselves thereupon; still there is something 
that requires explanation — Edward Newman.] 
Henry Reeks.—Hylesinus Fraxini.—l\ found the enclosed 
larve and perfect beetles feeding just beneath the bark of 
young ash-trees. Can you kindly give me any information 
respecting them? ‘Their great abundance must do the trees 
some harm. 
[The beetles are Hylesinus Fraxini. They have long been 
known as injurious to ash-trees, but more particularly to young 
ones: as the trees grow older the effect is less marked, and 
on old trees the injury is scarcely perceptible. Painting the 
trees with turpentine has been effacacious on a small scale; 
but itis the more general practice to let the trees outgrow the 
disorder. I have particularly noticed the partiality shown by 
the Hylesinus for those young trees which have been 
previously weakened by the attacks of Zeuzera A®sculi, 
presenting a parallel case to that of Scolytus destructor and 
Xyleutes Cossus, the attacks of the moths being almost 
invariably followed or accompanied by that of the beetles.— 
Edward Newman. | 
A. L. S—Mangold Wurzel Beetle.—I1 adopt the term 
“beetle” because the little creature is so named by the 
