312 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 
Family SC AR ABSEID/E. 
These are the “lamellicom” beetles in which the antenna has an oval 
club composed of from three to seven leaves or lamellae at the tip, and 
this is usually much longer in the male. The leaves are closely opposable, 
so that, when at rest, the club seems solid. The species vary much in 
appearance, and range from small to very large; in habit from feeders on 
leaves to burrowers in excrement. In all of them 
the legs are formed for digging, the fore-tibiae being 
almost always flattened and toothed at the outer 
edge. The tarsi are generally long except on the 
fore-legs, and always 5-jointed, so that the species 
are easily recognizable. 
The larvae are white-grubs and live in decaying 
wood, in excrement, in decaying vegetation gener¬ 
ally or in the ground on the roots of plants. They 
are white or yellowish in color, with a brown, horny 
head bearing prominent mandibles, and are much 
wrinkled and enlarged toward the posterior extrem¬ 
ity, where they end in a smooth, obtusely rounded, 
often discolored sac. Their position is partly coiled 
up, the tip of the abdomen usually about touching 
the long spiny legs. 
The feeders in decaying and excrementitious mat¬ 
ter are useful or harmless; but so much cannot be 
said for those that feed under ground on the roots 
of plants. »Grass lands are very apt to become in¬ 
fested, and sometimes lawns are completely destroyed by grubs which 
shear off every root, leaving the tops to wither. Field crops after grass 
often suffer severely, and in this State strawberries are among those 
most injured. 
Remedial measures are unsatisfactory where once the grubs have 
established themselves, and methods in avoidance are usually recom¬ 
mended. Fall plowing old sod is good practice, and if chickens follow 
the plow or hogs are allowed to run in the infested field they will dis¬ 
pose of large numbers of them. 
In rare cases, e. g. the rose-chafer, it is the adult and not the larva 
that becomes injurious, and the method of treatment must be modified 
accordingly. So “May beetles” or “June bugs” sometimes attack fruit 
blossoms by eating into the stem, and in such cases the arsenites are 
of use. 
CANTHON Hoffm. 
C» ebenus Say. Seashore, rare (Li). The species of this genus are 
“tumble bugs,” making large pellets of dung, in which they lay their 
eggs and which they afterward bury. 
C. lecontei Harold. Lakehurst VII (Bf); DaCosta VII (W); Clementon 
V, 22, Lucaston VIII, 27 (Brn); along shore Brigantine to Cape May 
VI, VII (div). 
Fig. 124.—Antenna 
of a L,amellicorn 
beetle to show 
the structure 
of club. 
