CHRYSOMELID^E. 501 



England, in May and June in the Western States, usually at 

 night, but we once observed it flying in the hottest part of the 

 day. At this time the female lays her eggs in the bark near 

 the roots. The nearly cylindrical larvae are "whitish fleshy 

 grubs, with a small horny head, while the prothoracic ring, 

 as usual, is much larger than the others, the two preceding 

 ones being very short, and from thence the body narrows to 

 the tip. It bores upward into the wood, where it lives two or 

 three years, finally making a cocoon eight or ten inches from 

 its starting point, in a burrow next to the bark, whence it 

 leaves the pupa state (which begins early in June) in midsum- 

 mer. It also infests the wild apple, quince, pear, June-berry, 

 mountain-ash and hawthorn. Eiley advises soaping the trunk 

 of the tree to prevent the beetle from laying its eggs, and 

 when the tree is infested Avith them to cut through the bark at 

 the upper end of their borings and pour in hot water, while in 

 the autumn the bark should be examined and the young worms 



/ 



that had been hatched through the summer may be dug out 

 and destroyed. 



We have found what we supposed to be the young larvae of 

 Desmocerus cyaneus Fabr. in the stems of the elder ; the beetle 

 is a handsome purple and white Lougicorn. We have found 

 Rhagium lineatum Olivier living in old trunks of pine trees. 

 The antennae are no longer than the breadth of the bod}^. It 

 makes a cocoon of chips, and the beetle appears in the autumn, 

 not, however, leaving the tree until the spring. 



CIIRYSOMELID^: Latreille. The Leaf-beetles are oval or 

 oblong, often very thick and convex above, with short an- 

 tennae, round prominent eyes, with a narrow cylindrical 

 thorax, and the hinder thighs often much thickened in the 

 middle, while the abdomen has five free segments. The larvae 

 are short, rounded, cylindrical or flattened, generally of soft 

 consistence, usually gaily colored, and beset with thick flat- 

 tened tubercles or branching spines, and well developed tho- 

 racic feet. There are estimated to be from 8,000 to 10,000 

 species. They are found feeding, both in the larva and adult 

 stages, on leaves, either on the surface, or, as in Ilispa and 

 several species of Haltica, their larvae are leaf-miners. 



