Insects. 



7921 



599 



406 



278 



On Raking for Coleoptera, %c. — Doubtless other entomologists 

 besides myself are located in a neighbourhood where the sweeping- 

 net can find but little employment in its own proper way. For their 

 benefit the following note is penned. Our upland herbage is generally 

 scanty and short; even the meadows are hardly "sweepable" much 

 before midsummer. Hedges, moreover, are supplanted by banks, frora 

 £ve to eight feet high, originally compacted of sod and stone, but soon 

 buried beneath a tangled vegetation of Aira and other grasses, foxgloves, 

 sorrel, dog-violets, plantain, knapweed, bird's-foot trefoil, meadow vetch- 

 ling, wood sage, Cotyledon Umbilicus, &c., so well guarded withal by 

 sturdy gorse bushes and many -toothed brambles, that the strongest can- 

 vass is soon reduced to its component particles of thread if it rashly 

 attempts to invade the repose of their weaker protegees. Now then 

 for the way by which these tantalizing coverts may be compelled to 

 yeild their insect treasures. A roomy sweeping-net and an ordinary 

 garden-rake are the instruments, and a fine evening after sunset in dry 

 iweather the time of times for the sport. The net is to be thrust 

 through the herbage till it reaches the earthen bank, and kept in posi- 

 tion by the handle pressed against the breast or leg, according to the 

 height selected for attack, thus leaving both hands at liberty to wield 

 the rake. With it the herbage above the net is to be violently torn 

 up and down, to and fro, until its iron teeth have scored the earth 

 beneath. This to be repeated on new ground as often as desired, 

 while daylight holds out. The immediately visible results of the 

 process are grass, leaves, and bits of slick, earth and small stojies. Do 

 VOL. XX. O 



