46 AUSTRALIAN SUGAR-CANE BEETLES AND TllEJR ALLIES. 



minutes or so, they began to settle on various stems, either dry or green., 

 from 6 to 12 inches above the ground, and always with the head upward. 

 In this position they remained perfectly motionless, with anteniue 

 extended, for a short i)eriod of one to several minutes. Avhen they turned 

 and walked quickly to the ground. In an exceptional case, I saw a 

 beetle wait twenty-tive minutes lief ore descending to enter the soil. 

 Apparently there is a marked homing instinct among these beetles, for. 

 in every case but one, those that I saw" came to rest on twigs with a 

 definite exit-hole at the base ; and in most cases they crawled directly 

 into this when descending. In the exceptional case, noted above, the 

 beetle landed on a dry stick which was hanging but not reaching the 

 ground. When he came to the end in his descent he appeared to be 

 mystified, for it was still 6 inches to the soil ; he turned round and climlied 

 up, then came down again, reaching as far as he could below the end of 

 the stick, as if trying to reach the ground. Still not satisfied, he climbed 

 up a few inches, and when he came back down to the l)roken end he 

 opened his wings and circled around to another stick, evidently the 

 right one, for it had an exit-hole at the base. 



After reaching the ground the beetles are often satisfied to simply 

 get their heads covered in the hole. I have seen them with the hinder 

 part of the body still exposed to view, even up till S a.m. ; when the sun 

 began to warm up they dug in. 



This tardy halrit of entering the soil is surely very detrimental to 

 the species, for it exposes them to their natural enemies, both birds and 

 parasites. In fact, on one occasion I observed a fiock of ibises feasting 

 on them shortly after the morning flight. The birds poked tlieir long 

 slender l)eaks into the grass at the base of each of the stems, and in most 

 cases they got the beetle. 



Excavation, on numerous occasions, showed that wliere the beetles 

 enter the soil to hide during the day they do not go deep : usually those 

 located were at depths of 4 or 5 inches. 



Observations on the morning flight in fields of sugar-cane were very 

 similar to those recorded above. Before the flight begins the beetles 

 are to be seen sitting about on the leaves ; they go through the same 

 preliminary preparation of sensing the surroundings, and they have the 

 same circling flight close over the tops of the plants, that I have noted 

 in the evening ; but their movements are so swift that it is difficult to 

 observe any single specimen long. When ready to alight on the cane, 

 they fly in small circles, and appear undecided ,iust where to land; they 

 then rest on the leaves for a few minutes, and fall to the ground. 



I watched three specimens after they Avere on the ground, and it was 

 fifteen to thirty minutes before they began to dig in, and in each case 

 they crawled under the stool first, burrowing near the roots. Like the 

 ostrich, they stuck their heads in, and then remained (juiet for about 

 fifteen minutes before burrowing deeper. About 6-30 a.m. the sun was 

 getting on the ground; nevertheless, I could still see a part of the tail 

 of each lieetle at 7 a.m., so I marked the spots. At 2 p.m. we tried to 

 dig them out, but only found one, though we went down a foot. Tliis 

 one proved to be a male, and was 4 inches straight down from where he 

 entered the soil. Evidently the other two were gravid females, for, as I 

 learned subsequently, these go deep to oviposit. 



Though these beetles remain exposed so long after the morning 

 flight ceases, it is an exceedingly difficult matter to find them, for they 

 are so much the colour of the soil, especially on the red volcanic lands. 



