THE BLISTER BEETLE TEICRANIA SANGUINIPENNIS— 

 BIOLOGY, DESCRIPTIONS OF DIFFERENT STAGES, AND 

 SYSTEMATIC RELATIONSHIP. 



By J. B. Parker, 



Of the Catholic University of America, Brookland, District of Columbia, 



and 



Adam G. Boving, 

 Of the Bureau of Entomology, United ^States Department of Agriculture. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The family Meloidae is distributed all over the world and has 

 been the subject of the studies of several prominent entomologists. 

 Nevertheless, it is a group but insufficiently looked into from the 

 different angles of natural history and especially has the biology 

 of the family and the description of its different larval stages been 

 less worked out than is generally realized. 



The metamorphosis was unknown until 1851 and since then only 

 a few important contributions have appeared on this subject, namely, 

 the classical papers of Newport, Fabre, Mayet, Riley, Beauregard, 

 Kunckel d'Herculais, and the modern, numerous, very important pub- 

 lications by A, Cros, who has given complete or partial accounts of 

 the biology of many of the hitherto little known or entirely unknown 

 genera and species. 



However, as mentioned, much knowledge is still lacking of the 

 life history and structural details of several important forms, this 

 being especially true of our American species. Concerning these 

 little has been written since Riley's famous publications on Epicauta 

 and -Hornia. Thus, the life history of a genus so common as Macro- 

 hasis has not yet been fully investigated, though F. B. Milliken has 

 recently contributed some valuable information. Of 31 North 

 American genera we have complete biological records of only 1, 

 namely Epicauta; and partial records of 2, Hornia and Macrohasis; 

 the life history of the remaining 29 being unknown or known only 

 through European publications on European species. 



This fact is the more amazing when it is considered that at present 

 we know from North America mjany more genera and species than 



No. 2513. — Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 64. Art. 23. 



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