THE TIGER BEETLE. 



There are several species of this in- 

 sect which vary in size and color. They 

 are found most abundant when the sun 

 is bright and hot. The roadside is a 

 favorite place with them. They are 

 long-legged, agile creatures, swift of 

 foot and wing. As one approaches them 

 they sit perfectly still but are ever alert 

 and ready to dart away if one gets too 

 near. Even after I have had them in 

 the net they have escaped, so quick is 

 every motion. As early as the 13th of 

 March I saw them in Colorado, — es- 

 pecially the light metalhc green ones. 

 In my collection I have several varie- 

 ties. One has the head, legs, thorax 

 and under part of the body dark pea- 

 cock-blue, with reddish bronze spots on 

 the thorax. The wing coverings change 

 from orange-red to purple-red, all with 

 a beautiful metallic lustre. 



One of the most common is spotted 

 and striped not wholly unlike the mark- 

 ings of a tiger, whence its name. The 

 rarest is the Amblychila cylindriformis 

 which, while found occasionally in va- 

 rious localities, is seldom taken in more 

 than single specimens. On one occasion, 

 however, the matter of single specimens 

 was not the case. In the spring of 1878 

 the chancellor and two students of a 

 certain western university went in 

 search of Tiger Beetles and of this rarer 

 kind especially. The market value of 

 this little fellow was twenty-five dollars 

 each and there was a clamorous demand 

 from Berlin, Paris, Heidelberg, Edin- 

 burgh, London and New York, which 

 no one could supply. 



There was a suspicion in the mind of 

 the professor that Western Kansas 

 ought to be the abiding place of this 

 particular beetle. The students were 

 promised one-third of all the beetles 

 they could catch, and the little expedi- 



tion set forth. Wallace County was the 

 final landing place and here three 

 months were spent. The suspicions of 

 the professor were not unfounded, for a 

 part of the county fairly swarmed with 

 these twenty-five dollar bugs. So many 

 were captured that the young men sold 

 their interests to the professor for 

 enough to pay their way through col- 

 lege for two years. The professor 

 never made a better bargain. With 

 more than a thousand of the rare species- 

 in his possession, he sold enough to 

 pay the students, pay all the expenses 

 of the expedition, and complete through 

 an exchange a collection of eight thou- 

 sand beetles, the largest in the world. 

 There are still a number of this species 

 left with the professor and they are the 

 only available ones in the world. Never 

 before nor since has this species been 

 found in any numbers. Wallace County 

 has been searched from border to bor- 

 der, but only with a loss of time and 

 money. The professor and his boys got 

 them all. This rare fellow is described 

 by Say as follows: 



"Body dark chestnut brown, impunct- 

 ured; head blackish; thorax narrowed 

 behind, not elevated ; scutel, none ; elytra 

 joined at the suture, rather paler than 

 the thorax; irregularly marked with un- 

 even punctures, many of which are pre- 

 ceded by shghtly elevated point; a sub- 

 marginal and marginal elevated line, 

 line of edge acute, not more elevated 

 than the others; epiplurae with larger 

 and more distinctly scabrous punctures. 

 Length more than an inch." 



I found many varieties of Tiger Beetles 

 varying in size and color. There was 

 one long stretch of highway along which 

 I passed two or four times a week. Be- 

 ing ever on the outlook for specimens, 

 I had come to the conclusion that they 

 were not to be found along roads of 



