Common Beetles of our Countryside 



There is another genus of Phytophaga which comes 

 near Chrysomela, called Cryptocephalus, whose species 

 are smaller and more oblong and parallel sided, with the 

 head bent down so as to be nearly concealed by the 

 thorax ; they are also rather conspicuously coloured, 

 and one of the most brilliant of them we may very 

 likely find crawling about somewhere or sweep it off 

 the herbage of the Downs. This is Cryptocephalus 

 hypochceridis (the C. of the Hypochaeris, a plant like 

 hawkweed), Fig. 17, Plate IV. It is about 5 mm. 

 long, of a shining silky golden-green colour, often 

 with coppery or bronze reflections ; the thorax is 

 conical and finely punctured, with the head hidden 

 beneath its front margin, the elytra rather uneven 

 and roughly punctured, the antennae long and quite 

 black, legs of moderate length and also black. 



Cryptocephalus is one of the largest genera of beetles ; 

 it contains at present about seven hundred species 

 spread over the whole earth ; of these we possess in 

 this country about nineteen. The most frequent 

 is a small black species, C. labiatus, 2 to 3 mm. long, 

 which one can generally beat out of young birch trees. 

 Then there is a species very like hypocharidis, but 

 rather larger 6 to 7 mm., of a brilliant golden-green 

 with less of the coppery tone which usually distin- 

 guishes that insect ; its name is C. aureolus, Fig. 5, 

 Plate B, and it can often be found in numbers sitting 

 in the flowers of hawkweed. There is one other 

 which we might find by sweeping among the long grass 

 on the Downs, C. pusillus, not more than 2 to 3 mm. 



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