More Beetles 



The favourite plant was one of the Rubia- 

 cese, the cheese-rennet (Galium verum), in 

 the stage of young .shoots. Various other 

 plants were eaten no less readily on the way, 

 including especially Cichoriaceae such as 

 Pterotheca nemansensis, Chondrilla jubcea 

 or gum-succory, and cut-leaved podospermum 

 (P. laciniatum) i and Leguminosae such as 

 Medicago falcata, or yellow medick and Tri- 

 folium repens, or white clover. The acrid 

 flavours did not in the least discourage the 

 flock. A Gerard's spurge was met with, 

 trailing its flower on the ground. A few 

 larvae stopped and nibbled the tender tops as 

 eagerly as the clover. In short, the fat crip- 

 pled larva varies its meal greatly. 



Examples abound of insects equally omniv- 

 orous of vegetable substances; there is no 

 need to linger over them. Let us pass on to 

 the exploiters of woody materials. The 

 larva of Ergates faber lives exclusively in de- 

 cayed pine-stumps; the hideous caterpillar of 

 the Moth inappropriately known as the Cos- 

 sus eats into old willow-trees, in company 

 with the ^gosoma. 



These two are specialists. 



The lesser Capricorn, Cerambyx cerdo, en- 

 trusts her grubs to the hawthorn, the sloe, 

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