THE FLOWER AND THE BEE 



predaceous, have ever been observed eating pollen or nectar. 

 Very few species of the rove-beetles {Staphylinidce) , which also 

 live chiefly on the ground, are ever found on flowers, although 

 a few very small forms {Antliohium) devour the poflen of the 

 red-berried elderberry. Among the ground-beetles, or CarabidoB, 

 Lebia is the only genus which regularly visits flow^ers; these 

 small green beetles, common on the goldenrods, feed partially 

 on plant-lice and insect -eggs, and it was undoubtedly the 

 search for food on foliage that led to flower-visiting. These 

 great families show how diflficult it is for flesh-feeding species 

 living on the ground to become anthophilous. 



The lady-bugs (Coccinellidoe) are common on foliage, search- 

 ing for plant -lice, or Aphides, and consequently they not in- 

 frequently pass over to flowers. Their short legs and round 

 forms render them exceedingly awkward and inefficient visitors 

 and they are of little significance in polhnation. I have seen 

 one of them slip backward five or six times before it succeeded 

 in climbing the smooth stem of a flower of the prickly sarsa- 

 parilla. The contents of their stomachs consists chiefly of 

 pollen and spores. A part of the dermestids, so destructive 

 to skins, feathers, and woollen carpets, also frequent flowers 

 for pollen. The carpet-beetle in the adult stage is abundant 

 on the flow^ers of the currant and cherry. Every one who has 

 picked raspberries has met the Httle white larvae of another 

 species (Byturus unicolor), which infests the fruit, while the 

 small, brown beetles visit the flowers. 



The familiar fireflies are carnivorous both in the larval 

 and adult stages, but as the beetles are common on the bark 

 and foliage of shrubs and trees, they are often taken on flowers. 

 Many are, however, night-fliers. Special interest attaches to 

 the soldier-beetles (Chauliognathus) , one of the few genera of 

 the Coleoptera which have the mouth-parts lengthened to 



188 



