370 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



CHERBT. LEAVES. 



country, it is a matter of no small moment that its scientific name 

 be correctly ascertained and well settled. Some confusion at pre- 

 sent exists upon this point, among different writers. This discre- 

 pancy has chiefly arisen from a most disingenuous statement made 

 by Dr. Harris, in both editions of his Treatise, page 28 and 26, 

 where he says the genus Phyllophaga was " proposed by me in 

 1826. Dejean subsequently called this genus Ancylonycha.'^'' 

 Now the number of the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository in 

 which Dr. Harris's essay appears (vol x, pages 1 — 12) bears the 

 date of July 1827 ! and the name Phyllophaga is there merely 

 suggested for this insect and its kindred, without any statement of 

 the marks by which the group thus designated can be recognized. 

 In this same year (1827) also, a distinguished British entomologist, 

 Rev. r. W. Hope, published the first part of his Coleopterist's 

 Manual, in which this same group is distinctly set apart and 

 clearly characterized, and the name Lachno-stema (i. e. hairy- 

 breasted) is given it. This name, therefore, is evidently the one 

 which the established rules of scientific nomenclature will give to 

 the genus to which our insect belongs. Dejean's name Ancylonycha 

 mentioned above by Dr. Harris, not having been proposed until 

 several years later. 



This insect has hitherto been generally entered under the spe- 

 cific name quercina, but Dr. LeConte has recently ascertained that 

 nearly ten years before Weber bestowed this name upon it, Froh- 

 lich, a German naturalist, had in the year 1792 described it under 

 the nsime fusca. 



We thus reach the conclusion that Lac hnosterna fusca ^ a term 

 meaning blackish hairy breast, is the correct technical name oi 

 our common May beetle, which has so often hitherto been called 

 Phyllophaga quercina in our agricultural periodicals. 



The May beetle is a glossy thick-bodied insect, 0.80 to 0.90 long and about 

 half as broad. It varies in color from chestnut-brown to black, and this differ- 

 ence of color does not appear to be owing to age, for it is found in newly hatched 

 beetles before they have come forth from the ground. The head is commonly 

 darker colored than the thorax, is closely punctured, and its anterior edge is 

 thin and turned upward, with a concavity but not an angular notch in its 

 middle. The feelers and antennae are somewhat paler yellow than the legs, 

 which are polished tawny yellow. The punctures upon the thorax are coarse 

 and farther apart than on the head. The wing covers though glossy and 



