THE COLEOPTERA 



111 



an inch to an inch long, and very stout (Fig. 102). They appear 

 during the spring months, earlier in the South than in the North, 

 flying at night and are attracted by hghts, to which they fly in a clumsy, 

 erratic way. They feed at night on the leaves of various trees, often 

 entirely stripping them. Different kinds of June bugs appear to prefer 

 different kinds of trees for their food. Some species seem to select the 

 oak, others the ash, still others the pine. Small birches have been 

 completely stripped of their foliage in a single night. In the South two 

 species appear to prefer the longleaf pine and whatever the species, 

 large areas of timber may be defoliated when the beetles are abundant, 

 (hough this seldom appears to be the case in New England. On the 

 Pacific Coast too, though June bugs occur, they do not seem to be as 

 important as in the interior of the country, particularly in the Mississippi 

 Valley and as far north as the Great Lakes. 



Fig. 102. Fig. 103. 



Fig. 102. — Adult "June Bugs," female and male, natural size. {From U. S. D. A. 

 Farm. Bull. 940.) 



Fig. 103. — Full-grown larva (white grub) of "June Bug," natural size. {Original.) 



The eggs of the June bugs are laid in the ground and hatch in a few 

 weeks into tiny "white grubs" with brown heads and legs, and soft, 

 white bodies which increase in size toward the hinder end. The grub 

 (Fig. 103) as usually found when dug up is curled through the greater part 

 of a circle and this, is very characteristic, only a few other beetle larva? 

 (and those belong in the same family) greatly resembling it. The grubs 

 feed during the summer on decaying vegetation and living plants close to 

 the surface of the ground but on the approach of cold weather go deeper 

 into the ground to pass the winter. The following spring they come up 

 near the surface again and now feed on the plant roots, causing in this, 

 their second season, the largest injury. In the fall of the second season 

 they again go deep into the ground to pass the winter, coming up the 

 third spring to feed on plant roots until June or July, when they go down 

 a little, though not usually much if any below where they may be reached 

 by deep plowing. Here they transform to pupae which become adult 



