468 APPENDIX I 



large number of Labrador beetles from correspondents living at 

 the following points: West St. Modest (Ernest Doane), Red 

 Bay (W. Y. Pike), Cape Charles (Albert Pye), Nain (Chesley Ford), 

 Nachvak (George Ford), and Fort Chimo (Duncan Matheson). 



These men, without any previous experience in insect collecting, 

 succeeded in finding seven or eight thousand beetles representing 

 over eighty distinct species, some of them less than one-sixteenth 

 of an inch long. Their success in this occupation of hunting 

 beetles an unusual one to say the least seems truly remark- 

 able, and the men selected by Dr. Grenfell certainly lived up to 

 his opinion of their cleverness and very much more than fulfilled 

 my own expectations. 



A very large percentage of the beetles sent to me from Labrador 

 have been feebly developed, and I have noticed the same condi- 

 tion in collecting beetles, particularly water-beetles, above the 

 tree line in the White Mountains. So it would seem that insect 

 life in these cold countries does not attain the average and normal 

 full development found in our warmer climates. 



Beetles are at once separated from all other insects by their 

 hard shell and elytra, two horny wing covers meeting on the back 

 in a straight line and covering the real wings, which, like those of 

 flies and wasps, are formed of delicate membranes. In some beetles 

 these real wings are only feebly developed, 

 being but little used, and a few species have 

 no true wings at all, but only the hard wing 

 covers. 



More than one-third of all the known Lab- 

 rador beetles belong to one family (Carabidae) . 

 The species of this family are carnivorous, 

 feeding on other forms of animal life, and 

 are commonly called ground beetles, as they 

 are usually found upon the surface of the 

 ground, under stones, logs, or dead leaves, 

 or around the roots of plants, in moss, and 

 in similar places. The Labrador forms are 

 all of dark colours, though a few have a 

 FIG. 19. metallic lustre, and nearly all are of graceful 



Carabus chamissonis. form. 



A typical Labrador beetle of this family is 



shown in Figure 19. It is an opaque black insect a little over' half 

 an inch long, and it is known to scientists as Carabus chamissonis 

 Fisch. This beetle, like a great many others of the Labrador species, 

 is found in Alaska, and above the tree line on Mount Washington. 

 It occurs also in Greenland. 



A large number of the beetles of Labrador are generally distrib- 



