Dec, 1920 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society 145 



propels the insects back to the beach, for, were it off-shore, it 

 would blow the insects not in the range of the breakers out to sea. 



Or, to put it another way : On any day of sunshine and 

 warmth, when insects are mature, they fall into bodies of water 

 in their flights, either through exhaustion or lured thereto by the 

 dazzling reflection of the sun. They are found most abundantly 

 when the wind is off-shore, because it blows them in. The con- 

 trolling factor for their fall into the water may be phototropism 

 or weariness, or both. 



This conclusion is substantially the same that Dr. Needham 

 arrived at in his 191 7 paper,^ which has come to my notice after 

 writing the preceding. 



This phenomenon, of course, is one phase of that which leads 

 to the finding of insects on shipboard at great distances from 

 land.^ 



NOTES ON BEETLES OF THE GENERA MELASOMA AND 

 GONIOCTENA. 



By Wm. T. Davis, New Brighton, Staten Island, N. Y. 



On June 13, 1914, Col. Wirt Robinson, Mr. Charles Schaeffer 

 and the writer were on the top of Crow's Nest Mt., West Point, 

 N. Y. On the northerly extension of the mountain we found a 

 number of Mclasoma tremulce Fab. on the small poplars and 

 willows growing in a depression in the otherwise generally rocky 

 surface. On one of the willows we found Melasoma interriipta 

 Fab. associated with Melasoma trenndcr. The writer discovered 

 a male interriipta that was apparently in copulation with a female 

 tremiilce, but as the insects had been disturbed we were not sure. 

 They were, however, removed with a few of the willow leaves 

 to a bottle, and on the evening of June 18 were found in copula- 

 tion and examined with a glass to avoid any chance of error. 



The Melasoma interrupta here mentioned is known as Lina lap- 

 ponica Linn, in many collections, but in our native interrupta the 



6 1917, " The Insect Drift of Lake Shores," Can. Ent., XLIX : 129-137. 

 This has a bibliography of eight titles bearing on the subject. 



'' 1867, G. R. V. Frauenfeld, " Insectenleben zur See," K. K. Zool.-Bot. 

 Ges. Wien, 1867, pp. 1-40 of separate. 



