ADAPTATIONS TO HAUNTS AND SEASONS 275 



go near water, elongate insects of graceful form with slender 

 unmodified legs. The species of Donacia are found 

 crawling on the leaves of water-lilies, pondweed, sedges, or 

 other aquatic plants ; sometimes they go down into the 

 water for brief periods, but their larger relations of the 

 genus Haemonia are said to spend most or all of their lives 

 submerged though no special arrangement for carrying 

 down air has been detected in their structure. The egg- 



FiG. 68. — a, Newly hatched larva oi Donacia pahnata, X 50; 6, full- 

 grown larva partly buried and feeding in stem of water-lily ; c, the same 

 breathing with tail-spine embedded in water-lily stem, X 3. After 

 A. D. Macgillivray (N.Y. State Mus. Bull. 68, 1903). 



laying habits of these beetles have been described in some 

 detail by A. D. Macgillivray (1903) and A. G. Boving 

 (19 10). The female, living on the surface of a floating 

 water-lily leaf, often eats out round holes penetrating to 

 the lower leaf-surface and then thrusting the tip of her 

 abdomen through, places her eggs in rows so as to form a 

 circular or chordal area surrounding the hole ; such is the 

 habit of the European Donacia crassipes and the North 



