280 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 10 



The seed was nearly ripe but had not yet expanded. Here I found the 

 larvae in the seed capsules, they had eaten out the inner half and them- 

 selves occupied the space from which they had removed the contents. 

 I found two or three larvae in a seed head, these left the seed, as soon 

 as the latter spread out, and fell to the earth into which they crawled 

 and pupated. The development to the imago does not take place in 

 the seed heads. At first I thought I would obtain from these larvae 

 Trypeta leontodontis and hoped to get some accurate information on the 

 metamorphosis of this boring fly about which Low has said, ' It is for 

 Trypeta leontodontis that a very distinct food has been given, not the 

 same it is certain as that of the closely allied species which are placed 

 together here. (Alleg. Nat. Zeit. IV, 1847, p. 295.) The results were 

 very different, however, as these larvae proved to be coleopterous. 

 The larva is footless with wrinkled folds, the segments being whitish 

 \\" long, when outstretched in crawling 2" long and |" in diameter; 

 head golden brown, mandibles darker, head small and roundish not 

 as wide nor as high as the body; body narrowed from front to back, 

 naked. 



"There emerged from larvae which left the seed heads on the 30th 

 of May, six specimens of a beetle on June the 26th and these were 

 Coeliodes (Cryptorhynchus) punctiger Schh. The time of transformation 

 was from 27 to 28 days. On the 8th of June, 1863, I found ten larvae 

 of these beetles in the seed head of this plant, and in the heads of the 

 same plant at the same time, I also found the seed eaten out by another 

 larva. These latter are 1^" long, darker than C. punctiger with a black- 

 ish head, sharply constricted segments and three pair of blackish legs. 

 They wedged themselves very tightly between the seeds and were 

 whitish in color. Hearings of these gave beetles of Olibrus bicolor." 



On June the 8th, 1916, I collected one hundred and twenty flower 

 heads of dandelion that had but recently finished blooming. The 

 blossom closes tightly (Fig. 14 g), just prior to throwing off the 

 withered petals and expanding the seed carriers into the characteristic 

 nebulous globe with which we are so familiar, and it is at this time 

 that the larvae are most easily found in the flower heads. When the 

 seed heads open, they crawl out, drop to the ground and burrow down 

 about the base of the plant to a depth of approximately one-half 

 inch where they construct small oval earthern cells, which can easily 

 be removed from the surrounding earth without crushing (Fig. 14 A;), 

 in which they pupate. Infested seed heads can easily be recognized by 

 the black exudations on the outer surface of the calyx (Fig. 14 g), 

 probably caused by the entrance of the young larvae or oviposition. 

 The larvae feed principally on the seed (Fig. 14 h, i, j) but on several 

 occasions larvae were found among the withered flower petals. Sev- 

 enty of these flower heads were dissected to determine the amount 

 of damage the insects were doing. From these dissections we found 

 that the average number of larvae in a flower head was 3.7, the 

 percentage of seed damages being 27.6. 



