BULLETIN OF THE BROOKLYN ENT. SOC. 79. 



Insect Life on Coney Island. 



BY F. G. SCHAUPP. 



The fauna of Coney Island, with its white frogs, white grasshoppers, 

 white spiders and white coleoptera, is very interesting. Besides the several 

 species, peculiar to the Island, e. g. Cicindela lepida, Pasimachus sub/aevis, 

 var. substriatus, Dyschirius sellatus, D. fi/iformis, Schizogenius planulatus, etc. 

 there are found very many rare species cast on the shore by southern winds, 

 often in immense numbers. 



Thus I filled one day two bottles with Hoplia modesta, elsewhere by no 

 means common, and had to leave hundreds more on the shore. My friend 

 J. Sticht, collected in one day over a hundred Cerambycidae. I myself 

 once found on a handful of straw that was washed upon the shore over fifty 

 different species. 



In this way the Doryphora lo-lineata, came from other regions to 

 Long Island and for several summers the entire coast has been paved with 

 this pest. 



Every new wave brings new guests. Some are thrown lifeless upon 

 the shore, some float on seaweed, bunches of straw, clippings of wood, 

 braving the foaming breakers, and as soon as they reach the shore, creep 

 land wards, happy like emigrants from the old world after a long stormy 

 journey. 



But alas! after a few steps, having scarscly finished their prayer of thank- 

 fullness for their deliverance from menacing death in the waters, a member 

 of the Brooklyn Entomological Society approaches with his deadly vial, 

 and alcohol or Cyanide is their fate. 



You can hardly walk three feet along the shore without disturbing 

 some Cicindela dorsalis and hirticollis of which there are thousands and thou- 

 sands. Somewhat remote from the shore, but not so common is found the 

 Cic. lepida and under cow or horse droppings, Pasimachus siiblaevis, Geopinus 

 incrassatus, Hister bimaculatus etc. 



But the most interesting part to the Coleopterists are those small 

 ponds 500 or 1,000 feet distant from the shore rising and falling with the 

 flood and ebb tides. 



Along these ponds whose borders are somewhat elevated there are al- 

 ways to be seen fresh holes, made by Dyschirius and Clivina.. These are 

 there at all times, at ebb and flood tides, and are very easily distinguished 



