Notes on Insecfivorons Coleoptera. 171 



in June, had also fed on vegetation, as indicated by a few 

 particles of parenchyma too far digested for recognition ; 

 but fully nine-tenths of its food consisted of spherical 

 eggs, in different stages of development, many of them 

 easily recognizable as the eggs of mites. The most ad- 

 vanced embryos had six legs and a pair of large palpi ; and, 

 by the shape of the abdomen and the position of the legs, 

 recalled the larvas of the spinning mites (Tetranychi). 



Harpalus pennsylvanlcus De G. — A specimen of this 

 species taken running in the road, at Normal, August 31st, 

 had the alimentary canal well filled with vegetable tissues, 

 some of wdiich were evidently derived from the ovules and 

 roots of grass. Among these were the tips of an ovule 

 with the styles unbroken and the tip of a rootlet with the 

 root-cap entire. A single mite was found, and a few 

 acrospores of fungi. This beetle was infested by a large 

 number of intestinal parasites of the genus Gregarina. A 

 second specimen had eaten similar vegetable food. Here 

 a piece of the epidermis of a rootlet, still covered with 

 trichomes, was noted, as well as several root-tips and 

 fragments from the growing tips of grass. Pieces of the 

 epidermis of grass with their peculiar zigzag cell boun- 

 daries, confirmed these determinations. A detached stigma 

 of a grass floret and a few stylospores completed the food. 

 A third specimen, taken at Normal on the 5th of Septem. 

 ber, contained some vegetable tissues with spiral cells, 

 the mandible and maxilla of an ant and vast numbers of 

 minute, spherical corpuscles, which Professor Burrill re- 

 garded as forms of bacteria such as occur on stagnant 

 water. This beetle had apparently skimmed this minute 

 vegetation from the surface of some pool. The fourth 

 specimen of this species, received in September, from Mr. 

 Webster, who collected it from the blossoms of ragweed, I 

 found to have eaten large quantities of vegetable tissue, 

 the fragments of which showed branched bundles of spiral 

 ducts with parenchyma between. These were evidently 

 the bracts or other floral organs of the ragweed. 



Harpalus caliginosvs.^A single individual, running 

 free upon the ground, had gorged itself with plant and 

 animal food, — apparently about three times as much of 



