BULLETIN 33, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



[46] 



river bank at a time wlien the water is still rising, or at least when it has attained 

 its highest point. Among, or on the washed up debris, a multitude of Coleoptera 

 of various families can be found, and the specimens can either be gathered up on the 

 spot or a quantity of the debris be put in sacks and taken home, where it can be 

 examined more thoroughly and with greater leisure than out of doors. A day or so 

 after the floods have receded the washed up specimens will have dispersed and only 

 a few will remain in the debris for a longer period. Still more protitable than the 

 spring floods are the summer freshets, because a larger and more diversified lot of 

 Coleoptera is then brought down by the water. A similar opportunity for collecting 

 is offered near the seashore if unusually high tides inundate the low marshes along 

 the bayous and inlets. 



Summer Collecting. — During the latter part of spring and throughout the whole 

 summer, when the vegetation is fully developed, every possible collecting method can 

 be carried on with success, so that the beginner hardly knows what particular method 

 to use. There are stones to be turned over ; old logs, stumps, and hollow trees to 



be investigated; newly felled or wounded trees to be 

 carefully inspected; here a spot favorable for sifting^ 

 claims attention ; promising meadows and low herb- 

 age in the woods invite the use of the sweeping net; 

 living or dead branches of all sorts of trees and shrubs 

 to be worked with the umbrella ; the mud or gravel 

 banks of ponds, lakes, rivers, and creeks afford excel- 

 4? BHK ('4i's^?'« "%=• lent collecting places; the numeroiis aquatic beetles 



■V iSi •' ^ 'iM ^N^ ^^^ *° be collected in the water itself ; the dung bee- 

 tles to be extracted from their unsavory habitations ; 

 in the evening the electric and other lights are to be 

 visited, the lightning beetles chased on meadows and 

 in the woods, or the wingless but luminous females of 

 some species of this family to be looked for on the 

 ground, and the trees and shrubs are to be beaten 

 after dark in search of May beetles and other noc~ 

 turnal leaf-feeding species which can not be obtained 

 at daytime; and, finally, some of the rarest Scara- 

 bseidse. and some other species fly only late at night or again only before sunrise. 



In view of this embarrassing multitude of collecting opportunities in a good local- 

 ity, the beginner is apt to be at a loss what course to pursue. Experience alone 

 can teach here, and only an expert collector is able to decide, at a glance at the locality 

 before him, what collecting method is likely to produce the best results, and his 

 judgment will rarely be at fault. 



It is impossible to go into details regarding the varioiis collecting methods, just 

 mentioned, and only a few general directions can be given regarding those methods- 

 which have not previously been alluded to. 



Collecting under Stones. — Turning over stones is a favorite method among beginners 

 and yields chiefly Carabidie, the larger Staphylinidfe, certain Curculionidse, and a 

 multitude of species of other families. Stones on very dry ground are productive, 

 only early in spring or in the fall, while those on moist ground, in the shade of woods, 

 are good at all seasons. In the Alpine regions of our mountainoiis districts, espe- 

 cially above the timber line, collecting under stones becomes the most important 

 method, and is especially favorable along the edges of snow fields. In often fre- 

 quented localities the collector should carefully replace the stones, especially those 

 under which he has found rare specimens. The neglect of this rule is one of the 

 principal causes for certain rare species having become extinct in the vicinity of our 

 cities. 



Collecting in rotten Stumjjs and Logs. — Success in collecting in rotten stumps depends 

 much upon the more or less advanced stage of decay as well as upon the situation 



Fig. 



66. — A Longicorn {Prionus 

 latieollis). 



