134 Forty-third Report on the State MusEtiM. [38] 



with her feet. The places usually selected for their deposit 

 are those in which grasshopper eggs abound. Hatching in about 

 ten days they come to the surface, and may be seen running 

 actively around, closely scanning every crevice for the concealed 

 eggs. Having found one of the grasshopper egg-pods, it at once 

 burrows into it, first devouring a portion of the shell of an egg, and 

 then its contents. Nourished by the eggs, it undergoes three larval 

 changes, when it leaves its food and constructs for itself a cell in the 

 ground, where two additional larval changes are passed through 

 before it assumes the pupa state. Its final transformation to the 

 beetle follows a brief pupation of five or six days, making the eighth 

 distinct form under which it has appeared. In the vicinity of St. 

 Louis, where Professor Riley studied these transformations, the 

 insect disj^layed a marked preference for the eggs of the grass- 

 hopper, known as Galoptenus differentialis. 



Characteristic Features. 

 Those who are acquainted with our more common blister-beetles 

 may readily separate the E. vittata from the others by its ovoid head 

 of a reddish color, with black spots; its narrower thorax, longer than 

 broad, having its greatest width behind, of a black color, and with 

 three dull yellow lines (or of a yellow color with two black lines) ; its 

 abdomen also broader and thicker behind, with black wing-covers 

 margined with dull yellow and traversed by a yellow stripe. The 

 antennae, legs, and body beneath, are black, the latter covered with a 

 grayish down. Its length is from five-tenths to six-tenths of an inch. 

 The general appearance of the insect is shown in Figure 16, after 

 Riley. 



Epicauta cinerea (Forster). 

 The 3Iargined Blister-Beetle. 

 (Ord. Coleoptera: Fam. Meloid^.) 

 Meloe cinerea Forster: Nov. Spec. Ins., Cent. Prim., 1771, p. 62. 



Mr. J, J. Thomas, of Union Springs, N. Y., under date of August 

 thirtieth, submitted some beetles received from Mr. W. B. Whitmore, 

 of Canton, Cherokee county, Ga., who desired to know what they 

 were and the mode of meeting them. 



It was stated in the communication accompanying, that " this is 

 their first appearance in the locality, and that they are quite destruc- 

 tive to tomato plants. Attention is first drawn to them by the 

 bare stems of the plants, upon which not a leaf is left. They are 

 timid and drop to the ground when attempts are made to capture 



