142 :. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



more regular elliptical outline from head to tip, and are numer- 

 ous in the same localities as the preceding. They are of 

 insectivorous habits, so far as observed in this country, and 

 probably throughout the world, although in Europe some species 

 are said to have been found attacking grain. However this 

 may be, the slight damage they can possibly do by destroying a 

 few kernels of grain, is hardly appreciable in view of the 

 numerous larvae of other insects which they devour. Two 

 species of the genus Agonoderus of Dejean are found com- 

 monly in Massachusetts. These are A. pallipes, Fabricius, and 

 A. lineola of the same author. The former is, on the upper 

 surface, of a light brown throughout, with black head and two 

 long black stripes on the elytra ; the abdomen below is black, 

 but the legs and antennae are yellow or light brown. It 

 measures about a quarter of an inch in length, and is found in 

 similar localities and living on the same kind of food as the 

 preceding. Pang-us caliginosus of Fabricius, the foggy or 

 smoky Pangus, (figure 18,) is the only species of this genus 

 that I have found in Massachusetts, and is 

 extremely common especially in ploughed 

 ground where it is continually devouring the 

 various cut-worms and soft-bodied, naked 

 caterpillars that feed on the roots of grain 

 crops ; it is one of the largest of our useful 

 ground-beetles and is of a polished or smoky 

 black, with the exception of the tarsi, antennae 

 and palpi which are of a light brown or 

 ^''''■^^" reddish hue. It measures very nearly an 



inch in length. The thorax fits very squarely the front of the 

 elytra and is much rounded and bulging across the middle, the 

 elytra deeply cut in longitudinal parallel lines, of which the 

 one nearest the suture or seam, on each side, forks into two 

 short branches as it approaches tlie thorax. The legs are black 

 and strong, the anterior pair being the shortest. The genus 

 Harpalns of Latreille comprises a large number of species 

 common in the New England States, which may be easily 

 distinguished by the common eye from their close rcsemldance 

 to the preceding genus, being apparently built on the same 

 model but reduced in size. They are all extremely voracious 

 and dispose of a great number of noxious insects in a season. 



