34 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



Our insect-eating birds undoubtedly devour many of these 

 insects, and deserve to be cherished and protected for their 

 services. Rose-bugs are also eaten greedily by domesticated 

 fowls ; and when they become exhausted and fall to the ground, 

 or when they are about to lay their eggs, they are destroyed by 

 moles, insects, and other animals, which lie in wait to seize 

 them. Dr. Green informs us, that a species of dragon-fly, or 

 devil's-needle, devours them. He also says that an insect, 

 which he calls the enemy of the cut-worm, probably the larva 

 of a Carabus or predaceous ground-beetle, preys on the grubs 

 of the common dor-bug. In France the golden ground-beetle 

 {Carabus auratus) devours the female dor or chafer at the 

 moment when she is about to deposit her eggs. I have taken 

 one specimen of this fine ground-beetle in Massachusetts, and 

 we have several other kinds, equally predaceous, which probably 

 contribute to check the increase of our native Melolonthians. 



Very few of the flower-beetles are decidedly injurious to 

 vegetation. Some of them are said to eat leaves; but the 

 greater number live on the pollen and the honey of flowers, or 

 upon the sap that oozes from the wounds of plants. In the 

 infant or gi'ub state, most of them eat only the crumbled sub- 

 stance of decayed roots and stumps ; a few live in the wounds 

 of trees, and by their depredations prevent them from healing, 

 and accelerate the decay of the trunk. The flower-beetles 

 belong chiefly to a gi'oup called Cetoniad.e, or Cetonians. 

 They are easily distinguished from the other Scarabteians by 

 their lower jaws, which are generally soft on the inside, and 

 are often provided with a flat brush of hairs, that serves to 

 collect the pollen and juices on which they subsist. Their 

 upper jaws have no gi'inding plate on the inside. Their an- 

 tennae consist of ten joints, the last three of which form a 

 three-leaved oval knob. The head is often square, with a 

 large and wide visor, overhanging and entirely concealing the 

 upper lip. The thorax is either rounded, somewhat square, or 

 triangular. The wing-cases do not cover the end of the body. 

 The fore legs are deeply notched on the outer edge ; and the 

 claws are equal and entire. These beetles are generally of an 



