COLEOPTERA 185 
southern regions, according to Delpino (‘ Ult.oss.,’ Atti Soc. ital. sc. nat., Milano, xi, 1868, 
xii, 1869), some flowers of this kind, e.g. Magnolia, are even exclusively adapted to 
pollination by beetles (Cetonia). Lastly, we sometimes find beetles upon flowers 
which offer none of the advantages above described, but only seem to allure by 
means of their bright colours: thus, for instance, Cryptocephalus sericeus and 
C. Moraei are often attracted by the vivid yellow blossoms of Genista 
tinctoria. 
A review of the habits of beetles which visit flowers, and of the families to 
which they belong, shows continuous gradations from forms which never visit 
flowers to those which partly nourish themselves on flower-food, and finally to 
those which entirely depend upon it. This shows clearly that insects which were 
‘not originally anthophilous gradually became more and more habituated to flower- 
food, and only acquired structural adaptations fitting them to successfully obtain 
such food after coming to depend upon it entirely. 
But few beetle larvae maintain themselves on flower-food (Helodes aucta, 
Meligethes). Other beetles, which as larvae ravage flowers, e.g. the apple-blossom 
weevil (Anthonomus pomorum), leave them at once on attaining to the perfect 
state. Among beetles which are anthophilous when adult, the larvae may be 
carnivorous (Telephorus, Trichodes, Coccinella), or may devour putrid animal 
matter (Dermestidae), or feed on living or decaying vegetable matter (Buprestidae, 
Cerambycidae, Elateridae, Chrysomelidae, Curculionidae, Cistela, Lagria, Mordellidae, 
Lamellicornia). 
Of the carnivorous larvae mentioned, most species of Coccinella and Telephorus 
retain their predaceous habits when adult, but some (Coccinella septempunctata, 
punctata, and mutabilis; Telephorus fuscus and melanurus; and others), though 
they do not disdain flesh altogether, resort more or less to flowers, while the adult 
Trichodes entirely abandons the carnivorous habit and becomes purely anthophilous. 
Of the larvae mentioned which feed upon putrefying animal matter, Dermestes 
retains this habit when adult, never visiting flowers, and this is also sometimes the 
case with Anthrenus and Attagenus. But the same species of the last two genera, 
which under favourable circumstances (e.g. in neglected zoological collections) may 
feed for many generations on animal matter, without even leaving the cases whose 
contents they are destroying, in other circumstances may be found by hundreds upon 
flowers, busily feeding upon pollen and nectar. 
The most perfect series of gradations in anthophily is found, however, in those 
families where the larvae feed upon vegetable matter, as the following selection will 
show.—No species of Bostrichidae is to be found on flowers: of Curculionidae only 
a very small minority resort exceptionally to flowers, either those of the same 
plants on which they have developed (Gymnetron campanulae, Larinus Jaceae and 
senilis'), or of other plants on which exposed nectar is to be found (e.g. Otiorhynchus 
picipes on Cornus, species of Apion on Adoxa and Chrysosplenium): the Chrysomelidae, 
1 Herm. Miiller found larvae and pupae of Larinus senilis /. at Miihlberg in Thuringia at the 
base of the capitula of Carlina acaulis, and the perfect insect on the leaves, and now and then on 
the flowers of the same plant. 
