502 



COLEOPTERA. 



Fig. 493. 



The genus Donacia connects this family' with the preceding. 

 It has a rather long body and unusually long antennae. D. 

 proxima Kirby is dark blue, and Donacia Kirhyi Lacordaire 

 is of a shining coppery hue. The larvae live in the steins of 

 water plants, and make a leathery cocoon in the earth before 

 transforming. 



The Grape-vine Fidia (F. viticida Walsh, Fig. 493) is very 

 injurious to the grape in the Western States, from its habit of 

 "cutting straight elongated holes of about an eighth of an 

 inch in diameter in the leaves, and when numer- 

 ous so riddling the leaves as to reduce them to 

 mere shreds." It is chestnut brown, and cov^ 

 ered with short whitish hairs, gi\ing it a hoary 

 appearance. Rile}^ states that it is very abun- 

 dant in the vineyards in Missouri, where it pre- 

 fers Concord and Norton's Virginia grapes, 

 while it occurs on the wild grape-vine and on the leaves of 

 the Cercis Canadensis. "It makes its appearance during tht 

 month of June, and by the end of July has generally disap- 

 peared, from which fact w^e may infer that there is but one 

 brood each year." The vines should be often shaken and 

 chickens turned in to feed upon them when it is possible. 



Crioceris is 

 known by its 

 rather long 

 bod}^, and the 

 prothorax be- 

 ing narrower 

 than the ely- 

 tra. The an- 

 tennte are 

 Fig. 494. rather long, 



the fore coxae are swollen, pressed together, and the claws 

 are either free or united at the base. We have no native 

 Bpecies, but Crioceris asparagi Linn, has been introduced 

 into gardens about New York, doing much injury to the 

 asparagus. Fitch describes it as being about a quarter of an 

 inch long, with a tawn}' red pr<^tliorax and three bright lemon 

 yellow spots on each elytron. The larva is soft-bodied, twice 



