137 
April, 1887.] history society of Wisconsin. 
other species of Carabidae. As might be expected the Staphylin- 
idx and Qarabidx were abundantly represented. Of the former 
family Mr. Rauterberg enumerates almost 100 species as inhab¬ 
iting Milwaukee County, and probably three-fourths of these 
occur in the natural littoral distribution. The largest species of 
the group, Staphylinus maculosus has not, however, been observed. 
The beautiful tiger-beetle, Qicindela limbalis, is confined almost 
entirely to the lake beach north of the “ water works.” Geopi- 
nus incrassatus and Polpochile capitata were often found half 
buried in the sand, which seems to be their proper element. 
A great number of species, rare elsewhere in the county, were 
very common under the drift-wood. Chlxnius erythropus is an 
example. Every collector knows that the genera Plcitynus , 
Pterrostichus , Chiasmus, Amur a, Bembidium and Tachys are abund¬ 
antly represented under stones along every road-side and in 
every meadow in spring. He also knows that, as the season ad¬ 
vances, these disperse and are met with but rarely. Strange to 
say, these genera remained under the refuse on the beach during 
the entire summer, and species which, during this season were to 
be found no where else, seemed to have found happy hunting- 
grounds on ihe lake sands. The Coleoptera, which are usually 
found in fungi and in decayed wood were rarely seen. The 
sexton-beetles, Necrophoridee , appeared on the carcasses of dogs, 
etc., cast up with the other refuse. The species of Hister were 
common. I remember once finding a fine specimen of Histei 
bimaculatus on the sand. 
Among the other Coleoptera of the lake beach were found 
numbers of water-beetles of the families Haliplidm , Dytiscidx, 
Hydrophilidce, and Gyrinidx. The insect-fauna of Milwaukee 
County embraces 97 species belonging to these four families. 
Probably all of these occurred along the beach. I deem this 
very likely because aquatic distribution is more general than 
terrestrial distribution, and because the streams and pools of the 
county are so intimately connected with one another and with 
the lake that the distribution of the various species cannot be 
clearly defined. While speaking of aquatic beetles I will call 
attention to the fact that species of Elimidse are very rare in oui 
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