PRACTICAL HINTS ON COLLECTING COLEOPTERA. 
75 
Michaelmas is the season for this parasitic insect. 
Before taking my leave of the subject it has occurred to me 
that I have made no mention of the egg parasites. Surely they 
deserve a short notice so I hasten to place before you a typical 
species. It is Polynema gracilis. This insect is one and a half 
lines in expanse, shining black, with long, slender, flail-like an¬ 
tennae, ochreous at their base and clubbed at the tip. The abdo¬ 
men possesses a short stiff ovipositor. Wings transparent, 
nervureless and pubescent. Legs slender, and tawny or ochre¬ 
ous. Instead of puncturing the larva or pupa and depositing its 
egg therein, this pigmy insect performs on the egg. Thus 
there are eggs within an egg, this latter being of no great size 
itself and certainly not encouraging the introduction into its sub¬ 
stance of very large eggs ! 
And now I suppose we must leave our cabbage and cabbage 
eaters, for the descriptions are becoming tiresome I can see, 
slight as they are ; but they were necessary, for I doubt not many 
who call themselves entomologists have never left the beaten and 
orthodox track of the Macro Lepidoptera. To these, a short study 
of a group like the Ichneumons would read like a fairytale, and 
would be quite as interesting. Another time we will go into the 
life history of some of these insects more deeply, when I hope to 
show you much that is wonderful, if not altogether fresh, but for 
the present I must make my very best bow, and wish you all, 
gentlemen, a very Good Evening ! 
PRACTICAL HINTS ON COLLECTING 
COLEOPTERA. 
By A. Ford. 
(Continued from page 6j.) 
I should strongly recommend all who intend taking up this 
study, to pay a visit to some museum where there is a represent¬ 
ative collection of British Coleoptera, as the student will learn 
more by an hour or two’s careful study of an authentic collection 
than in a week of book-reading on the subject; he will soon 
learn the chief characteristics of the various groups. In last 
month’s number I omitted to mention, among the apparatus re¬ 
quired by the student, a water-net, which is indispensible to the 
Coleopterist; this can be purchased for a small sum of most 
dealers. The following is a list of the various groups of our 
indigenous species, with the principal habitat of each group and 
number of species.-— 
