172 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [June, '03 



The Coleoptera of the Sacramento Mountains of New 



Mexico. 

 By W. Knaus, McPherson, Kansas. 



The writer spent a week in June, 1902, in the Sacramento 

 Mountains of southeast New Mexico, and collected Coleoptera 

 from an elevation of forty-five hundred feet at Alamogordo, to 

 nine thousand feet at Cloudcroft on the summit. Alamogordo, 

 on the western foot hills of the mountains, is eighty-seven miles 

 northeast of El Paso, Texas. Until 1902 these mountains could 

 only be reached by rail over a branch road from El Paso. In 

 the spring of 1902 the Rock Island El Paso line was opened for 

 traffic and access to this range of mountains became easy. 



My first day's collecting was up La Euz and Fresnal Canons ; 

 from La Luz, at an elevation of forty-seven hundred feet to 

 Highrolls, at an elevation of six thousand five hundred ; my 

 last day was on the fourteenth of June at Cloudcroft on the 

 summit. The intermediate days were spent in the upper canons 

 that have their beginning in the vicinity of Cloudcroft, the 

 elevations being from seven thousand to nine thousand feet. 



The lower La Luz and Fresnal canons contain little or no 

 timber ; what little is seen is the cottonwood and the quaking 

 asp. The vegetation is semi-desert in character, thick fleshy 

 leaves covered everywhere with spines. As the elevation in- 

 creases pines and spruces begin to appear, and the semi-desert 

 flora begins to change. At Toboggan, at an elevation of eight 

 thousand feet, the flora has entirely changed owing to an 

 abundant precipitation of moisture. The mountain sides are 

 covered with pine and spruce forests which increase in density 

 as the summit is reached. The canon sides and summit are 

 covered thickly in places with a growth of shrubs and scrubby 

 oaks, known locally as " shin oaks," and afford excellent col- 

 lecting grounds for the entomologist. 



At the higher elevations many species of Coleoptera occur 

 which are found in northern New Mexico and southern Colo- 

 rado ; while the lower elevations show species peculiar to the 

 semi-desert or arid fauna. 



As my collecting was done the second week in June, before 



