THE INSECT WORLD. 



205 



the beetles in most cases appear in spring and oviposit late in 

 May or in June, land bare at that time will probably escape. 

 Fall sowing of crimson clover, to be turned under by the middle 

 of May or before, will in some cases protect the land and act as a 

 green manure if required ; or it may be allowed to remain until 

 mature to make hay, and, if then ploughed and put into potatoes 

 or some crop which the white-grubs do not attack, such as are 

 then in the ground will be starved out. Where white-grubs are 

 abundant, strawberries should not follow sod or other grass crop 

 directly, and the beds should be kept clean, at least through the 

 second year. Where the culprits are species of Laclinostenia, 

 fall ploughing is indicated, since this will turn out the newly-formed 

 beetles at an unseasonable period, and will cause their death in 

 most cases. 



We now reach the great series of Phytophaga, in which the 

 tarsi are apparently four-jointed, the third joint deeply lobed. 

 Two families belong here, — the CerambycidcB, or long-horned 

 beetles, and the Chrysomc/idcc, or leaf-beetles. The "long- 

 horned ' ' beetles are so named from their usually well-developed, 

 slender antennae, rarely shorter than the body, and often several 

 times as long. They are usually more or less cylindrical, often 

 with a vertical head, and always with well-developed mandibles. 



The larvae are wood-borers, using that term in a somewhat 

 loose sense to include roots and the more solid parts of a few 

 herbaceous plants, and are always cylindrical, the segments well 

 marked, those immediately behind the head considerably enlarged, 

 while anally they often taper quite abruptly. They are known as 

 "round-headed" borers to distinguish them from the "flat- 

 headed ' ' larvae of the BiiprestidcB, and the jaws, though rather 

 small, are powerfully developed, fitted for cutting the hardest 

 wood-fibre. In food habits the insects vary greatly, some attack- 

 ing only dead or dying tissue, while others infest sound trees 

 only. Perhaps in most cases they do best in somewhat weakened 

 trees which their ravages soon kill entirely. 



Among our largest species are the Prionids in which the 

 margin of the thorax is thin, sharp, and often toothed, and our 

 most common species, extending over a large part of the United 

 States, is Orthosoma brunneum^ an oblong, somewhat flattened, 

 brown species, from one and one-half to two inches or more in 



