The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



of the Lily-beetle. In my acre or two of peb- 

 bles I have planted a bed of asparagus. 

 The crop, from the culinary point of view, 

 will never repay me for my trouble: I am 

 rewarded in another fashion. On the scanty 

 shoots which I allow to display themselves 

 freely in plumes of delicate green, two Crio- 

 ceres abound in the spring: the field species 

 (C campestris, LIN.) and the twelve-spot- 

 ted species (C. duodecimpunctata, LIN.). 

 A splendid windfall, far better than any bun- 

 dle of asparagus. 



The first has a tricolor costume which is 

 not without merit. Blue wing-cases, braided 

 with white on the outer edge and each 

 adorned with three white dots; a red corselet, 

 with a blue disk in the centre. Its eggs are 

 olive-green and cylindrical and, instead of 

 lying flat, grouped in short lines, after the 

 manner of the lily-dweller's, occur singly and 

 stand on end on the leaves of the asparagus- 

 plant, on the twigs, on the flower-buds, more 

 or less everywhere, without any fixed or- 

 der. 



Though living in the open air on the leaves 

 of its plant and thus exposed to all the va- 

 rious perils that may threaten the Lily-grub, 

 the larva of the Field Crioceris knows no- 

 thing whatever of the art of sheltering itself 

 418 



