﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



97 



^*''^- ^'-^ found within the egg-pod, may be called 



parasitic, though they are not strictly 

 so; I have also found the larvfo of two 

 species of Ground beetles {Carahidce) 

 attacking said eggs. One pale species, 

 (Fig. 25) evidently belonging to the 

 genus Harpalus^ is more particularly 

 common and busy in the good work. It 

 is an active creature, something over half 

 an inch long, with powerful jaws and a 

 light brown head and prothorax, and 

 the rest of the body pale, tapering pos- 

 '/. teriorly and ending in a stout proleg 

 and two articulate appendages. For 

 the entomological reader I append a 



Harpalus ? Larva that preys on Locust 



Eggs:— a, larva, from above; b, head, rnore detailed description: 



Irom Ijeneath; c, leg— enlarged. 



Color yellowish white; prothorax and head hio:hly polished yellowish-brown, the 

 jaws darker. Head broad, depressed and rugose in front; jaws broad, robust, dark, and 

 with but one strong middle tooth ; antenna 5-jointed, joints 4 and 5 scarcely equaling 

 4^ in length; maxilla3 elongate, subcyllndrical, with a 4-jointed outer and a 2jointed 

 inner palpus; mentum elongate, its base soldered with the lower head; labrum also 

 elongate and with 2-jointed palpi ; all trophi armed with stiff hair. Prothoracic joint, 

 swollen, wider than head, twice as long as succeeding joint, horny, and with a darker 

 anterior border, limited by a transverse stria posteriorly and marked with tine longi- 

 tudinal striie. Legs, except coxas, dark brown and thickly beset with short, spinous 

 bristles of the same color. Abdomen tapering to end, with no horny plates, but each 

 joint with two transverse rows of stiflF j^ellowish hairs, the posterior rows strongest. 

 Anal proleg stout, the cerci 4jointed (joints 3 and 4 small and imperfectly separated) 

 and reaching but little beyond it; eyes small, dark and just behind base of antennae. 

 Length of largest specimens 58 inch. 



Eight specimens feeding on eggs of Caloptenus spretus. 



The other Ground-beetle, belonging probably to the same genus 

 as the above, is of about the same size and has precisely the same struc- 

 ture. It is at once distinguished, however, by a series of broad, dark- 

 brown, horny plates along the back, by paler horny pieces along the 



sides and beneath; by the 

 darker, somewhat narrower 

 prothorax; by the pale legs, 

 and by the shorter anal cerci. 

 I have found three specimens 

 of this last feeding on the 

 ggs, and one was sent to 

 me as having the same habit, by Mr. Whitman, of St. Paul. Mr. G. 

 F. Gaumer has sent me what he took to be a minute Kove-beetle 



E R— 7 



Harpalus ? Larva —JJ, under-side of head; /;, i,j, under- 

 side ot diflerent joints of body. eg^^S 



