COLEOPTERA. 56 1 



The larvae of the different species of May-beetles are 

 commonly classed together under the name " white grubs." 

 They are often great pests in meadows and in cultivated 

 fields. We have known large strawberry plantations to be 

 destroyed by them, and have seen large patches of ground 

 in pastures from which the dead sod could be rolled as one 

 would roll a carpet from a floor, the roots having been all 

 destroyed and the ground just beneath the surface finely 

 pulverized by these larvae. No satisfactory method of 

 fighting this pest has bee.i discovered as yet. If swine be 

 turned into fields infested by white grubs they will root 

 them up and feed upon them. We have destroyed great 

 numbers of the beetles by the use of trap-lanterns, but 

 many beneficial insects were destroyed at the same time. 



II. The Rose-bugs. — The common rose-bug, Macrodactylus 

 subspiiiosus (Mac-ro-dac'ty-lus sub-spi-no'sus), is a well-known 

 pest. It is a slender beetle, tapering before and behind, and 



measuring three eighths inch in length (Fig. 680). 

 It is thickly clothed with fine, yellow, scale-like 

 hairs, which give it a yellow color; the legs are 

 long, slender, and of a pale-red color. These beetles 

 Fig. 680. appear in early summer, and often do great injury 

 to roses and other flowers, and to the foliage of various 

 fruit-trees and shrubs. This is a very difficult pest to con- 

 trol. The best method now known is to use Paris-green 

 when safe to do so ; in other cases the beetles should be 

 collected by jarring them into a large funnel which is fitted 

 into a can. The larvae of rose-bugs feed on the roots of 

 plants. 



III. The Shining Leaf-chafers. — These insects resemble 

 the May-beetles in form, but can be distinguished from 

 them by the position of the hinder pair of spiracles, which 

 are visible on the sides below the edges of the wing-covers; 

 and they differ from the other leaf-chafers in which the 

 spiracles are in this position in that the tarsal claws are of 

 unequal size, one claw of each pair being larger than the other. 



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