502 



COLEOPTERA. 



Fiff. 49.3. 



The genus Donacia connects this family with the preceding. 

 It 1ms a rather long bod} T and unusually long antenna?. D. 

 proxima Kirby is dark blue, and Donacia Iiirbyi Lacordaire 

 is of a shining coppery hue. The larva? live in the stems of 

 water plants, and make a leathery cocoon in the earth before 

 transforming. 



The Grape-vine Ficlia (F. viticida Walsh, Fig. 493) is very 

 injurious to the grape in the Western States, from its habit of 

 "cutting straight elongated holes of about an eighth of an 

 inch in diameter in the leaves, and when numer- 

 ous so riddling the leaves as to reduce them to 

 mere shreds." It is chestnut brown, and cov- 

 ered with short whitish hairs, giving it a hoaiy 

 appearance. Rile} r states that it is very abun- 

 dant in the vineyards in Missouri, where it pre- 

 fers Concord and Norton's Virginia grapes, 

 while it occurs on the wild grape-vine and on the leaves of 

 the Cercis Canadensis. "It makes its appearance during the 

 month of June, and by the end of July has generally disap- 

 peared, from which fact we may infer that there is but one 

 brood each year." The vines should be often shaken and 

 chickens turned in to feed upon them when it is possible. 



Crioceris is 

 known by its 

 r a t h c r long- 

 body, and the 

 prothorax be- 

 ing narrower 

 than the ely- 

 tra. The an- 

 t c n 11 a? 



Fig. 494. 



the fore coxa? are swollen, pressed together, and the claws 

 are either free or united at the base. We have no native 

 species, but Crioceris aspararji Linn, has been introduced 

 into gardens about New York, doing much injury to the 

 asparagus. Fitch describes it. as being about a quarter of an 

 inch long, with a tawny red prothorax and three bright lemon 

 yellow spots on each elytron. The larva is soft-bodied, twice 



are 



rather long, 



