334 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 



development. The last abdominal segment is slightly emarginate 

 at apex. 



Length 16.0-27.0 mm. 



Typical erosa is very abundant in Southern California (San 

 Diego Co.) and Northern Lower California. It is markedly 

 gregarious in large or small companies. In the author's boyhood 

 days the insect was known as the '"soldier-beetle" in Poway Valley 

 (twenty-five miles northeast of San Diego.) This name was given 

 to it on account of the peculiar habit they have, when disturbed, 

 of raising the elytra and wings perpendicularly, showing the bright 

 red of their upper abdomen and walking as high as possible on their 

 legs. The red head, red abdomen and yellow elytra, with the 

 bandy-legged way of marching and falling into single file — one 

 after the other, gave a peculiar soldier-like aspect to their actions. 



Erosa apparently feeds upon various plants. The author's 

 mother — Mrs. Anna G. Blaisdell — states that in 1907, when col- 

 lecting a large series on Kent's Ranch at Poway, a large alfalfa 

 field was inhabited by thousands of this beetle, feeding upon the 

 alfalfa. Mr. L. Kent, owner of the ranch, stated that the tumble- 

 weeds (a species of Amaranthus that grows to an immense size 

 and is blown about by the wind in the fall of the year) are com- 

 pletely defoliated by them. 



In those individuals of erosa in which the transverse piceous- 

 black fascia of the elytra becomes more or less obsolete, the meshes 

 remain black and do not become pale as in inornata. 



Habitat.- — ^California (Poway, San Diego Co., July 5th, elev. 

 700 ft., Soboba Springs, Riverside Co., June; E. P. Van Duzee, 

 collector). Lower California (Tia Juana). 



Bibliography.— Annals Lyceum, V, 159; Trans. Amer. Ent. 

 Soc, June, 1870, p. 93; Trans. Amer, Ent. Soc, XVIII, Feb., 

 1891, p. 390. 



Tegrodera inornata, n. var. (A race of erosa Lee). Head 

 red, prothorax rufo-piceous to black varied with red. Elytra very 

 coarsely reticulate, middle transverse band entirely wanting, ex- 

 cept a small sub-triangular marginal blotch, meshes always yellow. 



Dr. Horn mentions a pale form taken by Mr. Gabb in Lower 

 California. During fourteen years residence in Poway Valley, the 

 author never saw a completely pale form of erosa Lee, although 



