COLEOPTERA. 119 



The fourth family of the leaf-eating Chrysomelians consists 

 of the Cryptocephalians (Cryptocepiialid.f,), so named from 

 the principal genus Crt/jdocnphalus, a word signifying concealed 

 head. These insects somewhat resemble the beetles of the 

 preceding family ; but they are of a more cylindrical form, and 

 the head is bent down, and nearly concealed in the fore part of 

 the thorax. Their larvas are short, cylindrical, whitish grubs, 

 which eat the leaves of plants. Each one makes for itself a 

 little cylindrical or egg-shaped case, of a substance sometimes 

 resembling clay, and sometimes like horn, with an opening at 

 one end, within which the grub lives, putting out its head and 

 fore legs when it wishes to eat or to move. "When it is fully 

 grown, it stops up the open end of its case, and changes to a 

 pupa, and afterwards to a beetle within it, and then gnaws a 

 hole through the case, in order to escape. As none of these 

 insects have been observed to do much injury to plants in this 

 country, I shall state nothing more respecting them, than that 

 Clythra (lomitiicana inhabits the sumach, C. quadriguttata oak- 

 trees, Chlamys gibbosa low whortleberry bushes, Crytocephalus 

 luridus the wild indigo-bush, and most of the other species 

 mav be found on different kinds of oaks. 



Although the blistering beetles, or Cantharides (Canthari- 

 did.e), have been enumerated among the insects directly bene- 

 ficial to man, on account of the important use made of them 

 in medical practice, yet it must be admitted that they are often 

 very injurious to vegetation. The green Cantharides, or Spa- 

 nish flies, as they are commonly called, are found in the South 

 of Europe, and particularly in Spain and Italy, where they are 

 collected in great quantities for exportation. In these countries 

 they sometimes appear in immense swarms, on the privet, lilac, 

 and ash; so that the limbs of these plants bend under their 

 weight, and are entirely stripped of their foliage by these leaf- 

 eating beetles. In like manner our native Cantharides devour 

 the leaves of plants, and sometimes prove very destructive to 

 them. 



