[Collecting Dung-beetles.]—The collecting of the numerous species (Hydrophilidæ, Staphylinidæ, Histeridæ, Scarabæidæ, etc.) which live in the droppings of various animals is by no means an agreeable task. The collector should provide himself with a pointed stick and collecting tweezers, and must manage to pick up the specimens as best he can. The larger specimens are best collected in alcohol, while the more delicate species can be collected in a cleaner condition by removing the droppings and sifting the ground beneath the same. Some species hide deep in the ground beneath the droppings and have to be dug out. Summer freshets, when pasture lands are inundated, offer an excellent opportunity for collecting the dung-inhabitingspecies in a clean condition.
[Night Collecting.]—The beating of trees and shrubs after dark is a good method of obtaining Lachnosternas and other species, and here the collector will do well to secure the assistance of a companion, who takes charge of the lantern and the collecting bottles, while the collector himself works the umbrella.
[Fall Collecting.]—From the first of August the number of species gradually diminishes, but late in the summer or early in fall quite a number of other species make their appearance, e. g., some Chrysomelidæ, Cerambycidæ, and many Meloidæ. Many of these frequent the blossoms of Golden-rods, umbelliferous and other late-flowering plants. The fall is also the best season for collecting Coleoptera living in fungi. Although puff-balls, toadstools, and the numerous fungi and moulds growing on old trees, etc., furnish many species of Coleoptera also earlier in the season, yet most fungi, and more especially the toadstools, flourish best in the fall, and consequently there is then the greatest abundance of certain species of Coleoptera. Decaying toadstools are especially rich, and should be sifted, and the collector should also not omit to examine the soil beneath them.
During the “Indian summer” there is usually a repetition of the “spring flight” of Coleoptera, though on a smaller scale, and collecting on the tops of fence posts and on whitewashed walls again becomes good. The first really sharp frost causes these late species to disappear, and winter collecting commences again.
Footnote:
[3] There are a few species of Coleoptera known in Europe which belong to the true “winter insects,” i. e. such as appear in the imago state only during winter time, but whether or not we have such species in our own fauna has not yet been ascertained.
[COLLECTING LEPIDOPTERA.]
Fig. 70.—The Eight-spotted Forester
(Alypia octomaculata). a, larva; b,
enlarged segment of same; c, moth.
In this order the importance of collecting the early states and of rearing the adult insects rather than of catching the latter should, if the collector has the advancement of knowledge and the greatest pleasure in mind, be insisted upon. Collected specimens, in the majority of cases, will be more or less rubbed or damaged and unfit for permanent keeping, and will always be far inferior to freshly reared specimens. All Lepidopterists, therefore, rely to a great extent upon breeding rather than upon field collecting. There are, however, many species of which the early states are still unknown, and these can only be taken by field collecting, and by attracting to various lights or traps. This subject, therefore, naturally falls into two categories—(1) the general collecting of the adult, and (2) collecting the early stages and rearing the perfect insects.