3 i2 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



Family 



These are the "lamellicorn" beetles in which the antenna has an oval 

 club composed of from three to seven leaves or lamellae at the tip, and 

 this is usually much longer in the male. The leaves are closely opposable, 

 so that, when at rest, the club seems solid. The species vary much in 

 appearance, and range from small to very large; in habit from feeders on 

 leaves to burrowers in excrement. In all of them 

 the legs are formed for digging, the fore-tibiae being 

 almost always flattened and toothed at the outer 

 edge. The tarsi are generally long except on the 

 fore-legs, and always 5-jointed, so that the species 

 are easily recognizable. 



The larvae are white-grubs and live in decaying 

 wood, in excrement, in decaying vegetation gener- 

 ally or in the ground on the roots of plants. They 

 are white or yellowish in color, with a brown, horny 

 head bearing prominent mandibles, and are much 

 wrinkled and enlarged toward the posterior extrem- 

 ity, where they end in a smooth, obtusely rounded, 

 often discolored sac. Their position is partly coiled 

 up, the tip of the abdomen usually about touching 

 the long spiny legs. 



The feeders in decaying and excrementitious mat- 

 ter are useful or harmless; but so much cannot be 

 said for those that feed under ground on the roots 

 of plants. Grass lands are very apt to become in- 

 fested, and sometimes lawns are completely destroyed by grubs which 

 shear off every root, leaving the tops to wither. Field crops after grass 

 often suffer severely, and in this State strawberries are among those 

 most injured. 



Remedial measures are unsatisfactory where once the grubs have 

 established themselves, and methods in avoidance are usually recom- 

 mended. Fall plowing old sod is good practice, and if chickens follow 

 the plow or hogs, are allowed to run in the infested field they will dis- 

 pose of large numbers of them. 



In rare cases, e. g. the rose-chafer, it is the adult and not the larva 

 that becomes injurious, and the method of treatment must be modified 

 accordingly. So "May beetles" or "June bugs" sometimes attack fruit 

 blossoms by eating into the stem, and in such cases the arsenites are 

 of use. 



CANTHON Hoffm. 



C. ebenus Say. Seashore, rare (Li). The species of this genus are 

 "tumble bugs," making large pellets of dung, in which they lay their 

 eggs and which they afterward bury. 



C. lecontei Harold. Lakehurst VII (Bf) ; DaCosta VII (W) ; Clementon 



V, 22, Lucaston VIII, 27 (Brn) ; along shore Brigantine to Cape May 



VI, VII (div). 



Fig. 124. Antenna 



of a I,aniellicorn 



beetle to show 



the structure 



of club. 



