1890.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 53 



species as generally fly just before dark. I usually selected a 

 piece of meadow-land with a bank of earth five or six feet high 

 running through it, thus making it easier to see the insects against 

 the horizon as they flew over. Accompanied by a white setter 

 dog, I happened to glance at him while sitting by my side and 

 noticed a number of specimens running along his back among 

 the hair. I captured these, and laughable as it may seem, there- 

 after found it much more profitable to send him running along 

 the top of the bank and act as a trap, than by the usual method. 

 I took numbers of small Carabidae, Staphylinidae, Scydmsenldae, 

 Pselaphidae and Nitidulidae in this way, which were evidently 

 attracted by his white coat in the semi-darkness. A wide ditch, 

 the surface of which was covered with a small floating water plant, 

 a species of Lemna, served as the other trap. A large swamp- 

 oak on its borders was very attractive at night to numbers ol Lach- 

 nosterna, which, in returning to the ground in the morning, flew 

 into the water, no doubt mistaking it for solid ground, where they 

 staid until their sluggish movements met the eyes of a collector 

 happening that way soon after, when they were immediately fished 

 out and transferred to his bottle. Although a large number of 

 specimens were taken, I believe, but two species were represented, 

 L. micans Knoch. and L. hirticula Knoch. 



NOTES ON ELATERIDiE. 



BY GEO. H. HORN, M. D. 



In the Annales Soc. Ent. Belg. , 1889, Dr. Candeze resumes his 

 descriptions of Elateridae in a " Quatrieme fascicule' ' of fifty-seven 

 pages. The descriptions are brief, but ample, and concerning 

 them he makes the following comment, which I translate : 



' ' Entomologists have been often able to observe that it is not 

 the longest descriptions which are the best. By too many details, 

 in which one loses himself, and which apply definitely and very 

 oftfen to the specimen only which the describer had before him, it 

 becomes impossible to figure to one's self the species which it is 

 desired to recognize. ' ' 



The following North American species are described : 

 Alaus canadeyisis. Allied to viyops, but with the dark color oime- 

 lanops. I have a specimen from Canada which responds fairly to the 

 description, which seems hardly specifically different from myops. 



