120 SIXTH ANNUAL KEPORT 



general tint is more yellowish or rust-colored. Very soon after the 

 appearance of the beetle the stems and branches of the plants named, 

 if carefully examined, will be found more or less covered with little 

 elongate pellets of excrement, (J, 5,) dark when fresh, but becoming 

 paler and grayish-brown when dry. These pellets are sometimes so 

 numerous as to form one large mass completely covering the stem or 

 branch; at other times, and especially when on the leaf or leaf-stem, 

 they are single. If more critically examined, they will each be found 

 to contain five or six pale yellow eggs (a) mostly laid side by side, 

 and separated from the excrement by a thin papery layer of a whitish, 

 opaque substance. These eggs give birth,* in a very few days, to little 

 dark yellow worms with a conspicuous black head, and shiny plate on 

 the first joint, six long, black, thoracic legs, and a pale anal proleg. 



This worm no sooner begins feeding than it besmears its back 

 with its own excrement. It grows apace, becoming paler with age, 

 and showing paler stripes along the back (c), which it continues to 

 cover, more or less completely, with its soft blackish dung, thereby 

 presenting a most repulsive appearance. This filthy habit has no 

 doubt, for object, the moistening and protection of the soft body from 

 the sun's hot rays, for in cloudy and rainy weather, and in the breeding 

 cage, the animal is far less careful about covering itself, and, as we 

 shall presently see, it is not found during the intense heat of summer. 

 The dung is pushed forward on the back purely by the contraction and 

 extension of the different joints, the anal slit being transverse and 

 excreting upward. 



After thrice shedding "its skin," each time anchoring itself to the 

 leaf, head downward, for the purpose, this worm acquires full growth 

 and descends into the ground, where it forms a somewhat oval cocoon 

 (d) in the construction of which it again uses its dung, mixing with it 

 a little earth to add consistency, and perhaps also employing a fluid 

 from the mouth. Here, in the course of a fortnight, it becomes a'pupa 

 (^), and in a few days more the beetle works its way to light. A 

 second brood of worms follows the first, there being scarcely any 

 intermission between the two broods, as the later individuals of the 

 first have generally not disappeared when the earlier individuals of 

 the second begin to hatch. The second broCd disappears, however, 

 during the fore part of July, and nothing more is seen of the insect 

 till the following September, when the worms which had remained 

 buried, without change, through the hotter months of July and 

 August, transform and give forth the second and last brood of beetles. 



* I have noticed that as soou as it leaves the egg-shell, the yoinig larva Irees itself from a delicate 

 pellicle which surrouiuls it, much as is knowu to be the case AVith so niauy Hemiptera and Orthoptera. 



