LEAF-BEETLES. 



137 



the exception of a yellowish brown labrum, but this color is so 

 densely covered with a bluish or ash-gray pubescence as to be- 

 come invisible ; the under side is even more closely covered than 

 the upper one. The eggs are attached to all sorts of plants by 

 long stalks, and are covered by deep brown scales of excrement, 

 most beautifully arranged in such a manner that the egg seems 

 to be enclosed in a pine cone. The mother, in covering the egg, 

 holds it horizontallv between the tarsi, adding the stercoraceous 



Fig-. 140. — Coscinoptera. dotninicana, Fab. — After Riley. 



covering in thin curved layers, which, in other related beetles, are 

 pressed into various patterns by the anus. In many cases the 

 female also possesses a little cavity at the tip of the venter, in 

 which the egg is hidden if she is disturbed before the operation of 

 covering it is completed. This egg hatches in about two weeks, 

 and the young larva cuts itself loose from the shell or anchor- 

 age, and tumbling to the ground, has to shift for itself. The cov- 

 ering of the egg now forms a house for the young larva, which 

 lives in it, gradually adding to the rim of the case, so that the 

 house grows with its tenant. Inside it changes later to a pupa and 

 perfect insect. The larva feeds upon dead leaves laying on the 

 surface of the ground. 



There is another beetle very common in our state, which so 

 closely resembles the droppings of a caterpillar that but few ex- 

 pect it to be a living creature, especially as the beetle, if dis- 

 turbed, drops to the ground and plays possum. The adult in- 

 sect is a little oblong, cubical, roughly shagreened, metallic-green- 



