INSECT LIFE IN INDIA. 



867 



ground running about the surface of the soil or of vegetation or 

 they may live beneath the bark and in wood in the tunnels of 

 bark and wood-boring insects feeding upon the larvse of these 

 latter. Little is at present known about these bark and wood living 

 forms but it is quite certain that there are a considerable number 

 of species living in the forests in this manner. A few species 

 have been detected eating growing corn and even immature seeds 

 of Umbelliferous plants ; these belong chiefly to the genera 

 ffarpahis, Zabrus, and Amara. Nothing is known of any Indian 

 forms living in this manner. 



There are a considerable number of blind members of this family ; 

 those living in caverns belong to the genus Anophthalmus, species of 

 which have been detected in the caves of the Pyrenees, of Austria 

 and of North America and may not unlikely be found in caves in the 

 Himalayas. Other blind Oarabidse have been discovered in various 

 parts of the wo rl d living under large stones buried deep down in 



the earth, the insects probably passing 

 through many generations under the same 

 stone. Other minute species, of the genus 

 Aepus, live under stones below high water 

 mark, emerging only when the tide uncovers 

 them. Some Carabidee frequent the nest of 

 termites and of 

 these there are 

 one or more at 

 present u n- 



identified spe- 

 Fig. 130. • t r 



Calosme oriental? (India), cies in India. 



Of carnivorous Carabidaj a common 

 small black one in India is Calasome 

 orientale (Fig. 130) which attacks 

 and feeds upon the young of the mi- 

 gratory or North-West Locust (Acri- 

 dium peregrinum) destroying them 

 in large numbers when the locust is FiQ m ^ Pheroptophug margi . 

 spreading through the country on its na u g (Calcutta.) 



