52 The Food Relations of the Carabkhe and Coccinellidce. 



September, give an average of forty-six per cent, of animal food, 

 all insects excepting a few mites eaten by three of the beetles, 

 and amounting to only one per cent, of the food. The insect 

 ratio, as far as recognized, with the exception of a single Podura, 

 consisted wholly of plant-lice, which amounted to thirty-five per 

 cent., while the fifty-four per cent, of vegetable food contained 

 only pollen of plants and spores of lichens and fungi, the pollen 

 and spores occurring in about equal quantities. The former was 

 chiefly from flowers of grass and composite plants, about seven 

 per cent, of the first and fifteen per cent, of the second. One 

 per cent, of the pollen of Polygonum, and a trace of the pollen 

 of pine, both eaten by a single beetle, are the only other items 

 under this head. Lichen spores, including Piiyscia, were reckoned 

 at two per cent., and those of fungi at twenty-five per cent. At 

 least two-thirds of the latter, eaten by nearly half the beetles, 

 consisted of spores of Helminthosporium. 



Three specimens of this species, taken in the corn-field at 

 Jacksonville, had eaten much smaller ratios of animal food, which 

 amounted to only thirteen per cent., all insects. Traces of plant- 

 lice were recognized, but no structures of chinch-bugs occurred. 

 All but five per cent, of the vegetable food was derived from 

 spores of fungi, very largely Cladosporium. Helminthosporium 

 amounted to nine per cent. Macrosporium and Septoria were 

 also found. Three per cent, of the spores of Physcia and other 

 lichens, and two per cent, of the pollen of rag-weed and other 

 CompositcC, complete the record. 



Four examples of H. coiiveryens^ all taken at Normal in 

 Auo-ust and September, liad eaten about the same amount of 

 animal food as the preceding species (forty per cent.), but differed 

 in the distribution of it by the fact that one of the specimens liad 

 eaten a myriapod (Geophilus), and that a caterpillar had been 

 taken by another. Insects proper amoiuited to but twenty-five 

 per cent., over half plant-lice. The vegetable food of this species 

 stands at fifty-six per cent., as compared with fifty-four of the 

 preceding, and the ratios under this head are very similar to those 

 just given for the other species. Pollen of Composit^e (dandelion) 

 makes thirteen per cent, that of grass makes five per cent., spores 

 of lichens two, and those of fungi tliirty-three per cent. As in 

 H. macalata., Helminthosporium was by far the most important 



