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tenne are reddish brown and serrate. A smooth, shallow, impressed. aes 
extends along the mesal portion of the thorax. The tarsi are not lobed 
beneath and the claws are pectinate.”—Comstrock & SLINGERLAND. 
Melanotus fissilis, Say. 
(Plate VL, Fig. 2.) 
This species is, according to Le Conte, abundant throughout the 
Middle and Southern States, and it also extends northward into Canada. 
The larve and beetles are associated with those of M. communis through- 
out Illinois, but in the southern part of the State this is the more 
abundant of the two. 
The larva has not been separated by us from that of M. commums, 
and the two are quite possibly indistinguishable. 
The beetle is from 12 mm. to 15 mm. in length, a dark reddish 
brown in color, with the body closely punctured and covered with fine, 
short, pale yellowish or grayish hairs. ‘The wing-covers are striated with 
deep punctures and the flat intervening spaces are minutely punctured. 
The thorax in /issilis is without the smooth median longitudinal impressed 
line found in communis, otherwise it is difficult to distinguish these species. 
Life History.—Vhe life history of this species is probably parallel 
with that of WM. communis, pupxe being found by us July 12, 1886, and 
August 12, 1889, as in that species. A pupa introduced accidentally, in 
blue-grass sod, into a cutworm cage in 1889, probably had its cell broken 
in moving the sod, and August 20 it was found lying on the surface. 
August 22 the beetle cast off the pupa skin and appeared to be none the 
worse for its strange experience. Larve that had already formed cells 
May 26, 1890, in the breeding cage, about six inches below the surface, 
had pupated July 26. From a “stock-cage of wireworms collected at 
various times for experimental use during the spring of 1889, we ob- 
tained September 21 several specimens of this species, with hardened 
crusts and fully developed color, as if their final transformations had 
been completed some little time before. They were still in their pupal 
cells, where they would probably have passed the winter if they had 
not been disturbed. 
Our collections of imagos have been made at substantially the same 
times as those of communis. In November, December, and February, 
numbers of adults were found in crevices of old logs, sometimes as many 
as a dozen to thirty or more within a few square inches. 
Melanotus infaustus, Lec. 
A single specimen of this beetle was bred in 1889 from a lot of 
larvee kept in a stock cage and fed upon corn, the others giving us M. 
fissilis. All were collected in a corn field near Champaign, and after 
being placed in the breeding cage were not disturbed until September 
21, 1889. They were then found to be well-colored adults lying snugly 
in the pupal cells, and apparently prepared to pass the winter there. 
The adult is°11.5 mm. in length, of a dark brownish color, rather 
slender, and covered with gr vyish hairs. The thorax is longer than 
wide, with straight, diverging sides, and the posterior angles have only 
a single carina. It is rounded in front, and is very sparsely punctate. 
