Dec, 1917 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society 107 



IN QUEST OF DINAPATE WRIGHTII. 



By J. O. Martin, Pasadena, Cal. 



About a year and a half ago Mr. H. C. Fall, of Pasadena, 

 first showed me the single specimen of Dinapate wrightii in his 

 very complete collection of North American coleoptera. I at 

 once determined to try to add this rare and unique beetle to my 

 collection of California coleoptera which was then just started. 

 I also hoped to make some further study of its Hfe history. 



Dinapate wrightii was first described by Dr. George H. Horn,* 

 from fragmentary specimens sent him by W. G. Wright, of San 

 Bernardino, who discovered the species in Palm Canyon, on the 

 northwestern border of the Colorado desert. Mr. Wright gave 

 the locality as Mojave desert, no doubt wishing to keep the fruits 

 of his discovery for himself and for eleven years he was suc- 

 cessful. Just how many specimens he secured during this period 

 I have been unable to find out; but certainly not many. Eleven 

 years after Horn's publication of the species came Mr. H. G. 

 Hubbard's letters to E. A. Schwarzf in which he announced its 

 rediscovery, giving the true locality, its food plant and many 

 interesting facts concerning its life history. The food plant 

 turned out to be the Washington palm {N eowashingtonia fili- 

 fera), which is found, in the United States, only in the canyons 

 at the head of the Coachella valley in southern California. 



April 14, 1 91 6, I packed my camping outfit in the automobile 

 and set out for Palm Canyon one hundred miles east of Pasa- 

 dena. The roads were in very bad shape, owing to the unusually 

 heavy rains of that winter, and it took all day to make what is 

 usually a five-hour trip, but night found us in camp at the mouth 

 of the canyon. The next morning I began a search of the canyon, 

 going as far up as the palms extended, without finding a tree 

 which fulfilled the conditions described by Hubbard. He says : 

 "I am sure now that they do not oviposit in bare trunks or in 

 healthy trees, although it is possible that the beetles kill the tree 

 in which they oviposit their eggs."t May 15, one month later, I 



* Trans. Am. Ent. Soc, Vol. XIII, p. i, January, 1886. 

 t Ent. News, Vol. X, p. 83, April, 1899. 



