affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 7 1 



in Sweden by Linnaeus, to whom it seems to have been unknown ; 

 it is said at the present day to be rare in that country, and is 

 only met with in the southern provinces. 



The larvae of this insect are as ferocious as the parent beetle, 

 feeding entirely upon animal substances, and even devouring 

 each other. They live principally underground, and in turning 

 over the soil they are frequently met with in the spring. As 

 they are then full grown, the eggs are, it may be presumed, laid 

 the previous autumn, and the larvae continue feeding throughout 

 the winter.* When they change to pupse, it is said that they 

 retire under stones, and form an oblique hole in which to undergo 

 their transformation, which takes place in a few days after, and 

 at the end of fifteen or sixteen more the beetle is produced. It 

 is at first yellowish, but attains its black colour in about twenty- 

 four hours. The larvae have a head somewhat like the beetle, 

 but the jaws are not toothed internally ; they are black and 

 shining, as well as the three first or thoracic segments : the 

 remainder of the body is ash-coloured, spotted with darker spots, 

 a line down the back, and the sides ochreous and hairy ; the 

 mouth, horns, and six legs, rust-coloured ; the tail is furnished 

 with a prehensile foot and two slender hairy appendages ; the 

 pupa is entirely ochre-coloured. (We have taken this description 

 of the larva and pupa from M. Blanchard's notice of them in 

 Guerin's ' Mag. de Zool.,' where figures are given in plate 165.) 



The Fetid Rove-beetle must destroy a great number of earwigs, 

 for, on confining one under a tumbler with some of those insects, 

 the beetle despatched and ate four of them in the space of an 

 hour and a half. It is curious to see the beetles seize the ear- 

 wigs, dividing their bodies, clipping off their heads, eating the 

 contents of the body, and rejecting the horny covering. 



Of all the insects to which pasture-lands are a permanent 

 resort, there are none more abundant and more injurious to the 

 neighbourhood than those which live underground and feed upon 

 the roots of most of the other plants, as well as of the grasses, 

 which grow in meadows, marshes, and pasture-lands. 



Amongst these are the caterpillars called " surface-grubs," of 

 which we have spoken at large in a former Report. f Probably 

 a very large number of species of this family are of similar 

 habits. Of Noctiia {Af/rotis) exclamationis, A. segetis, and 

 Triphmna jwonuha, we need here only record the ravages ; but 

 we must notice moi'e particularly the economy of another moth, 

 which sometimes destroys in its larva state a very large portion 

 of pasture-land. Although it is in the mountainous districts of 



* It is, however, far from improbable that they remain in the larva state for a 

 much longer period, 

 t Vol. iv. p. 108. 



