132 COLEOPTERA. 



fitted for leaping. The colors of these beetles are often rich 

 and brilliant, among which blue and green, highly polished, 

 and with a golden or metallic lustre, are the most common 

 tints. The larvae are soft-bodied, short, thick, and slug- 

 shaped grubs, with six legs before, and a prop-leg behind. 

 They live exposed on the leaves of plants, which they eat, 

 and to which most of them fasten themselves by the tail, 

 when about to be transformed. Some, however, go into 

 the ground when about to change to pupa3. Many of these 

 insects, both in the larva and beetle state, have been found 

 to be very injurious to vegetation in other countries ; but I 

 am not aware that any of them have proved seriously injuri- 

 ous to cultivated or other valuable plants in this country. 

 There are some, it is true, which may hereafter increase so 

 as to give us much trouble, unless effectual means are taken 

 to protect and cherish their natural enemies, the birds. 



The largest species in Xew England inhabits the common 

 milk- weed, or silk- weed (Asclepias Syriaca), upon which it 

 may be found, in some or all of its states, from the middle 

 of June till September. Its head, thorax, body beneath, an- 

 tennae, and legs are deep blue, and its wing-covers orange, 

 with three large black spots upon them, namely, one on the 

 shoulder, and another on the tip of each, and the third across 

 the base of both wing-covers. Hence it was named Chry- 

 somela trimaculata by Fabricius, or the three-spotted Chry- 

 somela (Plate II. Fig. 9). It is nearly three eighths of an 

 inch long, and almost hemispherical. Its larvae and pupae 

 are orange-colored, spotted with black, and pass through 

 their transformations on the leaves of the Asclepias. 



The most elegant of our Chrysomelians is the Chrysomela 

 Fig. 59. scalaris of Leconte, literally the ladder Chryso- 

 mela (Fig. 59). It is about three tenths of an 

 inch long, and of a narrower and more regularly 

 oval shape than the preceding. The head, tho- 

 rax, and under side of its body are dark green, 

 the wing-covers silvery white, ornamented with small green 



