181 



Fig. 175. C'arpophilua pallipennis. 

 Length about one eighth inch. 



NtTIDULIDvE. 



Those aro moderately small flattetied beetles, usually oblong, some- 

 times oval or elongate, yellowish tfj blackish ?jrown, often with one or 

 more pairs of small spots above. The wing-covers are usually cut 

 squarely off, not reaching the tip of the 

 abdomen, but they are rarely so short as 

 in the rove-beetles. The larvae are rather 

 broad and flattened, with short legs. 

 These insects feed on a 'great variety of 

 organic substances, notably fungi, bones, 

 skins, exuding sap, and damaged stored 

 grain, and at times extend their injuries 

 U) souad fruit and grain. 



Species of CarpojMlus occur on com 

 in the ear, and may gnaw the ripe 

 graias. They are from an eighth to a 

 sixth of an inch long, a fourth to a third 



of the body length being exposed above, behind the wing-covers. C. 

 pallipennis (Fig. 175), dark brown with pale wing-covers, is found in 

 Illinois, but is more common in the Southern States, where it is said to 

 be numerous in late summer and fall on corn, feeding on grains injured 

 by the corn ear-worm, and in cotton bolls that have been eaten by the 

 boll-worm. It is known to feed readily on decaying cotton and fruits, 

 and on the juices of bruised fruits and injured tree-trunks and limbs. 

 Stored grain is eaten by it, especially if at all unsound from injury or 

 decay. C. dimidiatus and antlquus are small brown species, which we 

 have frequently found with other insects on ^^injured com ears in fall. 



The former is common in the Southern 

 States, and has been noticed in injured cot- 

 ton bolls and in figs and other fruits. It is 

 a cosmopolitan species. 



Colastus semitectus has been found in 

 decaying cotton bolls and com ears in the 

 Southern States, and also in injured figs. 

 It probably feeds on fungi and rotten matter. 

 Ips quadriquttatus (Fig. 176), a larger 

 species, already fully treated as a seed-corn 

 insect in the Eighteenth Report of this 

 office {fasciatus','\)&ge, 23), is often very com- 

 mon about ripe ears in fall, especially on 

 injured, fallen, or partly decayed corn; and the same fact has been 

 reported by Harvey from Maine. An exceptional outbreak of this 

 species was reported to us by Dr. F. W. Goding, who found the beetles 



Firi. 170. Ips 4 - {/ u 1 1 a t u 8 . 

 Length about three sixteenths 

 inch. 



