igOO] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 495 



Some Notes on the Habits and Capture of Aegiale 



streckeri Skinner.''' 



By Ernest J. Oslar, Denver, Colorado. 



Owing to very little being known of the habits of this inter- 

 esting and beautiful species of ^giale and of its rarity in col- 

 lections, I thought it would be of interest to readers of ExTO- 

 MOLOGiCAL News to give a few facts in regard to its character- 

 istics and environments, which the writer had the pleasure of 

 observing in the past season during a three months collecting 

 tour in the southwest corner of Colorado. 



I found it extremely difficult of approach and capture, in 

 fact, it was without exception the most difficult of all diurnals 

 that it has ever been my lot to tackle. I found it an utter 

 impossibility to capture it in the hot mid-day sunshine, owing 

 to its continuous very swift flight, circling around a large area, 

 which it seemed to delight in keeping up for hours, pausing 

 for a few seconds once in a great while to rest on a rock, and 

 before one could get within striking distance it would shoot up 

 again like a sky-rocket, emitting a peculiar snapping-like sound 

 similar to a large species of black underwing grasshopper that 

 is found throughout the the Rocky Mountain region. Another 

 difficulty attending its capture was the rough nature of the 

 locality in which it made its haunts, being on the slope of a 

 steep foothill, covered with small rocks and boulders, cacti, 

 yuccae and sage brush, that led up to the top of what is called 

 the Florida Mesa, situated twenty miles east of Durango, Colo- 

 rado. By exercising a little patience arid keeping myself out 

 of sight in the shade of a large sage brush, from which I could 

 observe their movements, I was rewarded by the discovery of 

 two important facts, which materially aided me in making their 

 capture. The first thing that attracted my attention was, that 

 only the males were on the wing during the hot sunshine, and 

 the females remained concealed in the shade, settled with closed 

 wings on the main stem of the sage brush during the day, and 

 only flew when disturbed, and then only to a short distance to 

 alight on another sage brush. 



* See Ent. News, Vol. xi, pi. 2, Fig. 27. 



