339 



ORDER COLEOPTERA. 



Family Ciclndelidce. 

 GENUS CICINDELA. 



The insects of this genus frequent dry and sandy places, and some 

 species are very common in our highways. They fly swiftly, and frequently 

 alight at a short distance from their starting point. They are rapacious 

 and devour such small insects as they can seize. There may often be ob- 

 served small round holes in the ground frequented by Cicindelaj; these are 

 the habitations of the larvae. By passing down a straw as a director, and 

 carefully removing the earth, we can obtain the larva. It has a soft, cylin- 

 drical, whitish body, with corneous, purple or green head, thorax and jaws. 

 There are 6 legs near the head, an anal proleg, and a pair of tubercles sur- 

 mounted with hooks on the eighth segment. When in ambush it remains 

 near the surface, the head closes the hole, and thus conceals the pit and its 

 sanguinary inhabitant from those incautious insects which may be passing 

 over it. These are seized in a moment and conveyed to the bottom of the 

 retreat, to be devoured at leisure. The tubercles and hooks assist the in- 

 sect in its frequent motions up and down, and the large concave surface of 

 the head serves as a basket to hold the earth which it excavates in fabri- 

 cating its burrow. The mouth of this is carefully closed with earth when 

 the larva has attained its growth; it then becomes a pupa, and after some 

 time emerges in its perfect state. The Rev. L. W. Leonard, of Dublin, 

 N. H. kept one of these larva in a vessel of earth, and fed it daily with small 

 insects, till it underwent its metamorphosis. There appear to be two broods 

 in the year, one makes its appearance in August and September, and the 

 other in the following April and May, having remained pupae during the 

 winter. 



C. denticulata. Brilliant polished green; mandibles elongated, slender; 

 each elytron with 3 unequal marginal spots and terminal spots and terminal 

 lunule white. 1 



Length near half an inch. 



Head green, blueish and longitudinally corrugated and in the male with 

 long white hairs between the eyes; four basal joints of the antennas brassy 

 green, remaining ones piceous; labrum tridentate, with G marginal punc- 

 tures, of the male white edged with blackish brown, of the female entirely 

 greenish black; mandibles very long, slightly arcuated, slender, greenish 

 black, above with a linear, basal, white spot; palpi brassy green in the 

 male, greenish black in the female; eyes brown. Elytra brilliant asruginous 



1 ntffifrons, Dej. 



