BEETLES. 32^ 



of Europe, was introduced into America, near New York city, about ]85(i, ami since 

 then has been slowly spreading over Long Island and New Jersey. The beetles that 

 have hibernated appear iu early spring, and lay their blackish-brown eggs upon shoots 

 of asparagus as soon as the hitter come out of the ground. The full-o-rown larvoe are 

 about O.-J.i inch long, ashy gray or oliscure olive green, with shining black head 

 and legs, and a row of small warts of the same color along each side. The pupa is 

 enclosed in a slight cocoon, just undergrciund or beneath leaves and rubbish upon the 

 surface. The egg state lasts about eight daj-s, the larval stage about twelve days, and 

 pupation about ten days. The beetle is about O.'io inch long, and the arrangement 

 of its colin-s — lilack, yellow, and red — is somewhat variable. The head is black; 

 the jirothorax reddish, often with two lilack spots above; the elytra are yellow, with a 

 sutural strijie of black, from which strijie extends two black bands dividing the yellow 

 part of each elytron into three juirtions, which vary from three dots to three broad 

 bands, according to the width of the lilack sutural strijje and its branches. Beneath 

 the beetle is nearly or entirely shining black. Recently a second Euro]iean species of 

 asparagus-beetle, Cn'oceris duodecimpnncUita, has been introduced into Maryland. 

 The upper surface is orange red, each elytron ha\ ing six black dots 



Differing structurally from Cn'oceris by their very long first ventral segment, are 

 the numerous species of Doiiacia, found u]ion water-plants. JDonacia resembles, in 

 general appearance, the longicorns (Cerambyci<he) ; the antennte being inserted on the 

 front, and filiform, while the prothorax is narrow and not margined. These beetles 

 fly quickly fron\ one jilant to another. Their coloration is generally metallic, often 

 bronze-green abo\-e, and they are clothed with water-repelling hairs beneath. A 

 noticeable peculiarity of species of this genus is that they are full of some corroding 

 acid that rusts and destroys the pins on which they are mounted in collections. On 

 this account some collectors mount them on slips of jiajier, as is otherwise done onlv 

 with minute insects. 



E. Heeger writes of I), dacijjes, a European species, that the females, having passed 

 the winter in water and under decaying vegetation, deposit their eggs one by one, in 

 the daytime, u]ion the thick roots of the water ]ilantain (Alisma plantago). Each 

 female has only from forty to fifty eggs, which are deposited in from fourteen to 

 eighteen days. In from ten to twenty days the larvae appear, and feed upon the roots 

 of the water-]ilantain. At the end of five or six weeks pupation takes pLace in a sub- 

 merged, parchnuMit-like cocoon, which is fastened to the stem of the water-plantain, 

 and which the larvie know how to Hll with air. Pupation lasts from twenty to tAventy- 

 five days. Professor C. T. E. von Siebold states that the larvfe of D. simplex, fasten 

 themselves by the end of their abdomen in a hole which they gnaw out of the root- 

 stalk of the bur-reed {Span((iaiiium .sfO/^jfe)'), while they feed upon the diatoms and 

 alga3 of the slime aliout them. The lioring into the l)ur-reed is for respiratory purposes, 

 the Larvie breathing the air of the intercellular sjiaces of the ])lant by means of its single 

 pair of stigmata, which are in the hooks at the tip of the abdomen. 



The Cee.\.mi!ycid,e, the so-called longicorn family, contains nearly as many species 

 as does the family of Chrysomelid.a?, and it is difficult to give any scientific ch.aracters 

 by which to separate absolutely the two families, although collectors would rarely be 

 in doubt as to which family to assign any given specimen. The species of Ceramby- 

 cidse are generally somewhat elongated, often cylindrical. The anteruue are usually 

 very long, sometimes much longer than the rest of the insect — whence the name 

 longicorn. They are mostly filiform, in some cases serrate, imbricate, or pectinate. 



