The Food Relations of the Carabtda- and Cocdnellidcp. 43 



bage-woims, had eaten only insects, chiefly a caterpillar, and a 

 larva of a beetle. A mere trace of endocrenous vep-etation was 

 also detected. Of sixteen specimens collected amoncr the canker- 

 worms, three were C. erythropus^ and thirteen ('. dijfi/u'.s. Cnt- 

 worms made about one-third of the food of the first, and earth- 

 worms the remainino- two-thirds. The latter were easily distin- 

 guishable by the peculiar spines mixed with dirt in the stomachs 

 of the beetles. About ninety per cent, of tlie food of the other 

 species was of animal origin, and about half the vegetable food 

 was fungi. Insects made seventy-two per cent., nearly half cater- 

 pillars, of which the greater part (thirty-one per cent.) was canker- 

 worms. Fragments of a fly were observed in one of the ])eetles, 

 and another had eaten one of the Tehphorichf. Mites and myria- 

 pods (Geophilus) had also been devoured by one. 



Gexus Agoxoperus. 



Fifteen specimens of Agonoderus were studied, ten of which 

 were those already referred to as representing the food relations of 

 these beetles to the chinch-bug. Fragments of that insect 

 amounted to about one-fifth the food of all, and were found in 

 four of the beetles; and plant-lice, taken by half that number, 

 amounted to about eight per cent. A single ant, Luaiufi Ji<(vus^ 

 eaten by one, was rated at five per cent.; and other insects 

 brought the general average of the class up to thirty-five per 

 cent. Vegetation made just half the food, all fragments of tlie 

 higher plants except one per cent, each of Helminthosporium 

 and Peronospora. A sinorle Agfonoderus, taken amonp- the cab- 

 bages, had eaten only undeterminable animal food. Four speci- 

 mens from various situations had made a similar record, differino- 

 only by the presence of a few mites in the stomach of one of the 

 beetles. Eleven per cent, of fungi, taken by the group last 

 mentioned, was derived from Ramularia and Coleosporium. The 

 circumstances of capture, together with the contents of the 

 stomach of one of these beetles, indicated that it had made its 

 meal chiefly from the seeds of June grass, but the remainder of 

 the vegetable food could not be more definitely classified. 



