Some Beetles of a Staten Island Garden^ 



Charles W. Leng 



The garden to which these notes refer is not large, barely 

 75 X 250 feet, and a considerable part of it is occupied by build- 

 ings ; but it contains some old trees and shrubs and is, in part, 

 bordered by old hedges, under the shelter of which the autumn 

 leaves gather, so that hibernating and wood-boring beetles are 

 protected. No attempt has been made to compile a complete list, 

 but some random notes may be of interest. 



Of the tiger beetles Cicindela punctulata has been an annual 

 visitor, frequenting the paths in midsummer. Its larval burrows 

 have never been detected in the garden, and as it flies to the elec- 

 tric lights and is found even on city pavements its occurence is 

 doubtless accidental. 



The same may be true of the large caterpillar-hunting beetles, 

 for while the green Calosoma scrutator and the golden-spotted 

 Calosoma calidum have been seen on the trees or on the ground 

 near them, they are infrequent and are hardly regular inhabitants 

 of the garden under consideration. 



No Cychnis has, so far as known,, ever honored it with a visit, 

 but one of the handsomest, the purplish Cychrus viduus, was once 

 found in an adjacent garden in a head of lettuce. 



A great many of the allied ground beetles of smaller size and 

 plainer colors are, however, always present, usually becoming vis- 

 ible when the pulling out of coarse weeds is in progress. They 

 love to hide away during the day, doing their useful work in de- 

 vouring smaller creatures at night, and are dislodged with the 

 earth that surrounds the roots of grass and weeds. Among such 

 are the commonest species of Harpalus and Anisodactylus, the 

 pretty but evil-smelling Cklaenius, the death-feigning Scarites sub- 

 terraneus, a similar but much smaller species of Clivina, and an 



1 Presented at the meeting of the Section of Natural Science April 14, 

 1917. 



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