Scarabaeidae 469 



For securing eggs under ordinary conditions, 12-inch standard size 

 flower pots may be used. These are filled with finely sifted soil and each 

 covered with a cylindrical wire screen cage (Tower type), as shown by 

 Davis (1915, plate 3, fig. 4). In filling the pots, it is desirable to add 

 enough water to the soil to make it moderately moist. It is also neces- 

 sary to avoid an excess of moisture, as a wet soil is not favorable for 

 oviposition and is likely to make sifting for eggs difficult. Before plac- 

 ing the beetles in the cage, it is advisable to introduce an ample supply 

 of food. The usual procedure is to sink a milk bottle or mason jar deep 

 enough in the soil to hold it upright, add water, and insert in it the 

 cut ends of stalks of such food plants as are preferred by the insect for 

 food. In the case of the Japanese beetle, the food commonly preferred 

 consists of the foliage of smartweed {Polygonum), rose, grape, sassafras, 

 linden, etc.* In addition, fruit such as apple is relished and, if cut into 

 thick slices or if peeled to expose some of the pulp, it supplies an 

 easily accessible source of moisture as well as food. When feeding 

 normally takes place underground, as in Euetheola, Ligyrns, or Dyscin- 

 etus, food should be buried in the soil. Thus, young tender plants or 

 soaked kernels of corn pushed well down into the soil are readily eaten 

 by the adults of Euetheola (Phillips and Fox, 1924). 



Frequently it is possible to secure a supply of eggs with much less 

 trouble than is imposed by the use of a commodious breeding cage like 

 that just considered. It is a relatively easy matter, for example, to get 

 many beetles to deposit eggs in quart milk bottles if enough sifted soil, 

 properly moistened, is introduced to fill them one-fourth to one-third 

 full and slices of apple or other suitable food added. This method is 

 particularly advantageous in winter, as the bottles can be placed in an 

 incubator at summer temperatures, thereby stimulating the deposition 

 of eggs. 



In the case of beetles reared from larvae kept indoors during the 

 winter, it is often difficult to induce them to mate as long as they are 

 permitted to bury themselves in the soil of the jars. This difficulty may 

 be overcome by temporarily transferring them to a test tube containing 

 no soil, which, after adding a slice or two of apple, is placed in an incu- 

 bator at a temperature of about 25 C. (77 F.) 



* Editor's Note: William P. Hayes, of the University of Illinois, reported in Canad. 

 Ent. 53:121, 1921, the feeding of adults of Strigoderma arboricola on various blossoms, 

 including roses, while confining them in covered tin pails containing damp soil. The 

 young grubs were fed bran until the second molt, when wheat grains were substituted. 

 Lachnosterna grubs were reared on the same substances. 



The feeding of adult Osmodcrma ercmicola on flowers, such as dandelion and Spiraea, 

 was reported in Bull. Brooklyn Ent. Soc. by Harvey L. Sweetman, Massachusetts State, 

 College, and Melville H. Hatch, University of Washington. Eggs were laid and hatched 

 in the wetter portions of decayed wood in the cages. M. E. D. 



