102 [Assembly, 



A Dung Beetle. 



Aphodius inquinatus (Herbst). 



Insects are sent for name and history from Annapolis, Md., 

 which, in the montli of October, are represented as filling the air 

 with their numbers. Farmers in the vicinity know it as " the 

 young tumbler bug." Ducks are very fond of them, and con- 

 sume a great many. 



The insect is a small beetle about one-fifth of an inch in length. 

 Its antennae are club-shaped, terminating in three lamellse or flat 

 lobes, showing it to belong to the lamellicorn beetles, of which the 

 sacred Scarabseus of Egypt is a well known representative. Its 

 head is black and two-thirds as broad as the thorax, which is also 

 shining black and nearly as broad as the abdomen. The abdomen 

 is oblong, depressed and rounded behind. The wing-covers have 

 about nine rows of minutely pitted stripes and are of a brown 

 color, with longitudinal black markings on the anterior, posterior 

 and lateral portions. The legs are hairy and armed with several 

 teeth. 



The beetle is known as Aphodius inquinatus (Hb.). It is a 

 European species, which, with other ot its congeners, has been 

 introduced into this country. It has two annual broods, occurring 

 both in the spring and in the autumn, and has otten been observed in 

 immense numbers, as in this present instance. Its eggs are depos- 

 ited in the excrement of animals, upon the partially decomposed 

 portions of which the young, when hatched, subsist. The tribal 

 group of Aphodiini to which it belongs, follows next in system- 

 atic arrangement to that of the Coprini, in which is contained the 

 common tumble-dung beetle — Canthon Imvis (Drury). It is there- 

 fore probable that its habits are so closely allied to that species as 

 to have suggested the name which has been given to it, as above 

 stated — " the young tumbler-bug," but I do not know that it 

 deposits its eggs in a pellet of excrement, and rolls it about until 

 it finds some suitable place for its burial, after the manner of 

 C. IcBvis. 



All the species of the genus are of small size, rarely exceeding a 

 quarter of an inch in length. They are usually black, but in some 

 instances have red or brown wing-covers, or marked in these colors. 

 No less than seventy North American species of the genus are 



