128 SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT 



quite active and shy, and having, in common with so many other 

 beetles, the habit of dropping to the ground upon the least disturbance, 

 it is easily overlooked and rather difficult to capture. Its food consists 

 of the more tender leaves of the several plants it inhabits, into which 

 leaves it gnaws numerous round holes. 



The eggs of this insect were first brought to me by Miss Murt- 

 feldt, and it was some time before I could ascertam their parentage. 

 They are of not unfrequent occurrence, and are found as early as the 

 end of May attached to all sorts of plants, especially evergreens, in 

 small lots of from two to ten (i.) Most beetles belonging to the 

 closely allied genera Crypto cephalus and Clythra cover their eggs 

 with excrement, and Rosenhauer* and other authors have minutely 

 described how the egg is held horizontally between the hind tarsi 

 while treated with its stercoraceous covering, which is added in small, 

 thin, curved layers, and pressed into various patterns by the anus. 

 In many species of the genera mentioned, the female is provided at 

 the tip of her venter, with a little cavity into which she sticks this 

 egg, if disturbed before the operation of covering is completed. Most 

 of the species, after thus protecting their eggs, simply let them fall to 

 the groud ; while a few, like our Dominican species, attach them care- 

 fully by a delicate, silk-like stalk, made of the same excrementitious 

 matter. This stalk is analogous to that by which the eggs of our 

 Lace-wings are attached, but, though shorter, it is less stiff, so that 

 the eggs, instead of standing erect, always droop more or less. In the 

 genus Chlamys the egg is anchored to the leaf, but by an extremely 

 short peduncle. f 



The egg of our species is 0.03 inch long, narrowly oval and thrice 

 as long as wide. It is whitish, translucent and very soft. Its cover- 

 ing is of a deep brown, and very beautifully molded, with seven or 

 eight thin ridges diagonally crossing each other at regular intervals. 

 The excrement from which it is made is either quite sticky in itself, 

 or is mixed with some sticky secretion : indeed, in the strict sense of 



*Ueber die Entw. undFortp. der Clythren and Cryptoccphalen. Erlaugen, 1852. 



+ 1 have fiequeutly reai'ed Chlamys plicata, Oliv., from thei larva, which may be t'ouiid feeding dii. 

 Oak, Sycamore and Blacliberry. Tlie figure (37) of the case whicli I have introduced is too heavy at tlie 

 top: it should be more pointed and curved downward. The beetles are found in early spring, and the 

 eggs, which Miss Mnrtfeldt first succeeded in obtaining, are perfectly oval and of a highly polished 

 Veuetian-red, and look like little pieces of coral. They are taken between the hind tarsi and treated to 

 a covering of dark, sticky excrementitious matter, very much in the same way as described in Coscinoji- 

 tera. The covering is, however, of simple and uniform surface. It is somewhat bell-shaped, the upper 

 end being largest, squarely docked, and slightly depressed so as to fonn a circular rim around the mar- 

 gin. The small end is auchored to the down of the leaf by a few gummy shreds. If the female is dis- 

 turljed Mhile covering the cg^, she sticks it in the ventral cavity and runs away. It would appear from 

 Miss Murtfcldt's observations that while micovered this egg is greedily sought by the inales, which de- 

 vour it; but that when once covered they never touch it. How essential to the species is a little bit of 

 dung, hi the light of this observation! The young larva, as in Coscinoptera, cuts its way out at the 



