1886. Entomology. 1055 
V. pedatifida Don. is “ probably only a marked geographical va- 
riety of that species [ V. palmata L.] with all the leaves finely dis- 
sected,” is worthy of further attention. In the Mississippi val- 
ley, where the three forms all grow, often quite near one another, 
their relations could be well expressed by considering V. pedat- 
ifera one extreme and V. cucullata the other, with V. palmata as 
an intermediate form. However, it will not do to consider the 
intermediate form, which is far less common than the others, 
as the type of the species. It is simply an intermediate form, 
and not a very constant one either. L. H. Bailey’s Preliminary 
synopsis of N. A. Carices (Proc. Am. Ac. Arts and Sciences) 
came to hand late in October. It contains notices of 289 species 
including, in addition to the strictly North American species, 
those of Mexico, Central America and Greenland, 
ENTOMOLOGY. 
A REMARKABLE CASE OF LONGEVITY IN A LONGICORN BEETLE 
(EBURIA QUADRIGEMINATA).—On the 11th of July, 1886, I caught 
at sugar, which had been placed upon apple trees for the purpose 
of attracting moths, a light brown long-horned beetle, marked 
with ivory yellow spots on the elytra. My attention was par- 
ticularly attracted at this time to the insect on account of a pecu- 
liar creaking sound which it began as soon as I picked it up. I 
had no difficulty in finding that the sound was produced by the 
rubbing of the posterior margin of the prothorax upon the anterior . 
margin of the mesothorax. The same sound could be made after 
the insect was dead, by working backward and forward its head 
and prothorax. Several days after this occurrence I captured a 
specimen, similar to the first, upon the clothes of a friend, but it 
disappeared before I reached home. Onthe 17th of July I found 
a third specimen on a tree but a few feet distant from that upon 
which I discovered the first specimen; this individual was also 
evidently attracted by the sugar. Five days later, July 22, 1886, 
another specimen came into my posession under much more re- 
_ markable circumstances. Dr. Boyd, of Dublin, Wayne county, 
Ind.; called my attention as I was walking along the street, and 
at once proceeded to remove two small corks with which he had 
closed two openings in the door-sill of his office. He then re- 
quested me to explain what had made the tunnels that evidently 
extended some distance into the sill. In reply to my questions, 
he stated that his attention had been called to the freshly made 
Openings early in the morning; at that time the holes were much 
smaller, and were ragged around the edges. These rough edges 
he had smoothed with a knife so he could stop them tightly with 
corks. A short time after he made the discovery mentioned, his 
attention was attracted by a buzzing noise which came from one 
of the tunnels. This he put an end to by pouring chloroform into 
the opening, and then plugging it up with a cork. There had 
