500 LOCAL DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS. 
attack the plants or vines; and having cut out the heart 
of a plant, go backwards like a crab with the prize to 
their burrow. At the time of pairing, sometimes violent 
battles, encouraged by the female, take place between the 
male and a stranger of that sex desirous of admission, 
which cease only with the death or flight of the stranger ?. 
The vicinity and borders of woods generally abound in 
insects of every Order; and if you proceed, as hereafter 
directed, will furnish you with numerous prizes, espe- 
cially of Lepidoptera. Here alone you can meet with the 
purple emperor butterfly (Apatura Iris); and if properly 
equipped you may readily secure him. 
The waters you will find nearly as prolific in insects as 
the land. In them, amongst the beetles, you may expect 
to meet with Dytzscus, Haliplus, Paelobius, Hyphydrus, 
Hydroporus, Noterus, Colymbetes, and other Dytiscide ; 
the Gyrini, Hydrophili, Hydrene, Elophori, &c.: under 
stones, the Limnius Mull. (Elmis Latr.); and in the 
mud, the Parnz and Heteroceri. Some Spheridiadeé are 
also aquatic: I have taken more than once Cercyon he- 
morrhoidale from the under side of a piece of wood im- 
mersed in a canal®, Even a few of the weevil tribes are 
to be met with in water. Lixus paraplecticus, Tanysphy- 
rus Lemna, Bagous atrirostris, are of this description. 
A species of Ceutorhynchus Schup. of Germar’s third fa- 
mily (C. Natator K.) swims well. On aquatic plants you 
must look for Helodes and the splendid Donacie, which, 
living on submerged shoots and roots of these plants 
in their larva state, continue to attend them when per- 
* Fischer, Entomogr. Russ. i. 135. 
» From finding it in water, Fabricius considered this insect as a 
Hydrophilus, but it is a true Cercyon. 
