las 



Bulletin 190. 



avid oftentimes injurious injects, we hesitated to believe that they 

 conld be tlie culprits. But we were soon convinced of their guilt 

 when we placed some of them in a cage with ripe strawberries. In 

 less than an hour we saw them at their nefarious work, and in 24 

 lionrs, 12 of the beetles had made about 20 large berri(?s look like 

 those in fiirure 4:3. 



A microscopic examination of the alimentary canal in a large 

 nundjer of ground-beetles (^12th Eept. State Entomologist of Illinois, 

 pp. 105-116) has shown that a considerable percentage of their food 

 mav be of a vegetable nature, but that in most cases tliej showed a 

 partiality for animal food where it was easily obtainalde. The two 

 kinds of these beetles found eating strawberries are known to some- 



4'2. — ILirpulas penmphaniciis. Ma^e beetle natural size in center and 

 twice enlarged at the left ; female, ttnice natural size, at tJie right. 



timi3S inc^lude young grasshoppers c'tnd various kinds of injurious 

 caterpillars in their daily diet. In their grub stages they are also 

 said U) l)e carnivorous, but there is little detinite knowledge recorded 

 of their life-histories. B(jth kinds of the beetles, howevei', have 

 several times been found feeding on the seeds of the common i-ag- 

 weed (Can. Ent. xxxii., 270) and on the seeds of grasses. Hence it 

 is not so sur])rising after all to find them enjoying a diet of straw- 

 berry seeds, sometimes also ihivoring it with the luscious pulp of the 

 fruit. 



It was our first expei'ience with these ground-beetles in an injuri- 

 ous i-ble, and we failed to find any recoi'd of such bad habits in 

 American entomological literature. But we soon learned that 



