PLANT-LOTTSE BEETLES. 183 



three-jointed tarsi, and the broad hatchet-shaped terminal joint of the 

 maxillary palpi, are their most distinctive organic characters. The tar- 

 sal joints are always dilated and cushioned beneath, and the second 

 joint is deeply bilobed. 



These insects seem to be specially appropriated to keeping in check 

 the extensive fiimilies of plant-lice, both the leaf-lice {A^^hides), and the 

 bark-lice {Coccides), uj)on which they feed voraciously, in both the imago 

 and the larva states ; and they are also known to devour the eggs of 

 other insects. Mr. Westwood refers to some observations which go to 

 show that they must sometimes subsist upon vegetable food, and 1 have 

 seen the Cocclnella 15-piinctata, Oliv., with its head deeply immersed in 

 a ripe raspberry, implying that they sometimes feed upon the juices of 

 ripe and succulent fruits; but such cases are rare and exceptional to 

 their general habits. It is not uncommon to find branches of trees 

 thickly covered with the scales of bark-lice, almost every one of which 

 has been torn open and its occupant destroyed by these predaceous in- 

 sects. 



The larvse are oblong, blackish grubs, and are usually thickly beset 

 with spines, which are also furnished with smaller spines or prickles, 

 giving them, when magnified, a formidable appearance. These, as is 

 the case with other larvse, are much more voracious than the perfect in- 

 sects. When about to pupate they suspend themselves by the tail to a 

 leaf or branch, and either push the larval skin upwards, where it re- 

 mains shrivelled about the point of attachment, or remain within it till 

 they emerge in the beetle form, when it bursts open upon the back and 

 permits the enclosed insect to escape. This tribe of beetles is composed 

 of the single family of Coccinellidae. 



Family LXIV. COCCINELLID^. 



As this family is co-extensive with the tribe to which it belongs, we 

 have only, in treating of it, to refer back to the remarks already made. 

 [ Fig. 93. J £n a systematic point of view the Coccinellidie occupy 

 a remarkal)ly anomalous and isolated position, in con- 

 sequence of the apparent heterogeneousness of their 

 organic characters. Whilst having the rounded form 

 of the plant-beetles, the clavate antennae of the scav- 

 engers, and the dilated palpi of the fungus-beetles, 

 they agree in food and habits with none of these, but 

 resemble, in their predaceous habits, the pentamerous 

 ^ ^ ^^ _^ ground-beetles, and the soft winged carnivora, all of 



n»; 2 maxillary pal- which havc their bodics more or less elongated, their 



pns ; 3, tarsus— alter ^ ' 



Westwood. antennae filiform, and their palpi slender or but mode- 



rately dilated. Moreover, the reduction in the number of their tarsal 



CocciNELLA :— 1, anten- 



