132 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. . 



" tiger-beetles " from their habit of leaping on their prey. The 

 favorite haunts of this group are sandy roads, and spots almost 

 bare of vegetation, where they can detect and seize other insects 

 without obstruction to their agile movements. In the sunny 

 days of spring and summer they may be seen in such localities 

 starting from under the feet of the traveller with a swift and 

 noiseless flight only to alight a few feet ahead, facing about to 

 meet the threatened danger as they touch the ground. This 

 operation is often repeated several times before tliey will take 

 refuge in the grass or other herbage at the sides of the road ; 

 in cloudy or stormy weather they are seldom or never seen, but 

 an hour's sunshine will generally attract them in numbers from 

 their hiding-places. 



Their eggs are deposited in the earth and the larvas, 

 which are hatched from them are not a little singular 

 both in form and habits. Figure 5 exhibits the larva 

 or grub of a tiger-beetle. They live in cylindrical holes, 

 Fi^. 5. which they burrow into the earth in a nearly perpen- 

 dicular direction several inches in depth ; stationing themselves 

 at the mouths of these excavations, which are completely filled 

 by their large and horny heads, they remain until some luckless 

 insect approaches when they suddenly seize and convey 

 it to the bottom to devour at leisure ; > an extraordinary 

 appendage, consisting of two recurved hooks is found on the 

 eighth segment of the larva, which serves as a hold or anchor 

 to prevent their being dragged from the mouth of the cave by 

 the attempts of the victim to escape. These holes, no larger 

 round than a small lead-pencil, may frequently be observed in 

 situations which preclude the idea of their being the work of 

 earth-worms, and having no rubbish or pile of gravel about the 

 opening would not be mistaken for the entrance of an ant hill. 

 If a stalk of grass, or slender, straight twig be thrust down to 

 a suflicient depth the ferocious inhabitant will often seize it 

 with so lirm a grip as to be di'awn out upon the surface by 

 means of it rather than to let go his hold. On examination ho 

 will {Hovc to be, in common parlance, a yellowish, white worm, 

 with six legs, and a horny, brownis^h head, with sharp jaws. In 

 this condition it exists during the summer, and it is supposed 

 passes through its transformation in the ground during the 

 winter and appears in the beetle-form the following spring, 



