23G Fiftieth Report ox the State Museum 



beetle, it was suspected that our new ally might be Lebia grandis which 

 had been for many years rendering excellent service against the potato 

 beetle in western States, — and such the insect, when received as above, 

 proved to be. 



The beetle has been described as follows : 



Size rather below medium; elytra truncate or cut off at the extremity, 

 leaving the tip of the abdomen exposed ; anterior tibiae, with the notch 

 on the inner edge; claws distinctly pectinate; abdomen somewhat 

 pedunculated; thorax rounded on the sides and wider than long; the 

 posterior margin straight, with the angles somewhat obtuse, but not 

 rounded, narrower than the elytra; elytra slightly widened posteriorly, of 

 a deep or dark blue color, distinctly striate and without visible punctures. 

 The thorax horny, yellow, smooth, wiih an impressed longitudinal dorsal 

 line. Head yellowish, but a little darker than the thorax, the legs and 

 breast also yellow. Length about or slightly over two-fifths of an inch; 

 width of the elytra a little less than half the length. 



It belongs to the large family of CarabidiV, which are commonly known 

 as ground beetles and which render valuable service to the agriculturist 

 in their preying upon many insect pests. 



As may be seen from the references given above, this insect has long 

 been recognized as one of the most efficient, if not the most efficient, of 

 the thirty or more species of insects that have been observed to prey 

 upon the Colorado potato beetle. 



The first record, so far as we know, of the fondness of this insect for 

 the Colorado potato beetle, is the brief mention by Mr. Glover, in his 

 annual report to the Department of Agriculture, for the year 1867, to 

 this effect : " Dr. Benjamin Morris, of Pittsfield, Illinois, found a species 

 of ground beetle, Lebia grandis, feeding voraciously upon the larvse in 

 a potato field in that neighborhood. Hundreds of this comparatively 

 rare insect were taken by him in the same locality, and always preying 

 upon the grubs of the potato beetle." 



In 1869, another notice of its operations in Ilhnois appears, in a state- 

 ment made by Mr. Walsh, the entomologist of the State at that time, 

 that it had been found destroying the larvje of the potato beetle, while 

 " so intent on its prey as to retain its hold even when the leaf was 

 gathered on which it stood." In the notice of its identification by Mr. 

 Walsh, he wrote of it: " This beetle is one of the vast group of ground 

 beetles ( Carabus family) almost all of which are cannibals ; but the genus 

 to which it belongs, unlike most of the other Cround beetles, haunts 

 plants and is active by day, instead of living on the ground and being 

 nocturnal in its habits." 



