BEETLES 



243 





A CLICK-BEETLE. 



■colour with greyish down, the thorax and alternate stria of the elytra being 



rather darker, and the antennas and legs dusky red. The long wire-like larva 



does much damage to corn, especially oats, by feeding on the roots ; it also lives 



on the roots of grasses, and bores into lettuces, turnips, carrots, and cabbages. 



Another beetle doing great damage 



to lettuces and other plants is A. 



sputator, which resembles the pre- 

 ceding species in many respects, but 



has no dark stripes on its brown 



elytra. 



The soft-beetles ai"e also repre- 

 sented in the fields ; among them 



being the snow - worm beetle 



(Rhagonycha melanura), which 



lives in cornfields and elsewhere : 



it is yellowish red in colour, with the 



antenna?, tarsi, and the tips of the 



elytra black. In length it measures 



about a third of an inch, and is very 



common on herbaceous plants and 



trees, living, like its relatives, on 



insects. The larva is long, flat, and 



clothed with down, leaving only 



the front half of the head uncovered. These beetles, which live under stones 



and on the ground, often appear before the beginning of spring in great numbers 



on the snow. 



The repulsive oil-beetles (Meloe), the females of which deposit 

 more than two thousand eggs in spring, at intervals of two or three 

 weeks, in holes in the ground dug in places warmed by the sun, are familiar insects 

 on lawns and meadows. After four or five weeks the yellow, flea-like larva? hatch 

 •out and make their way to flowers, in order to cling to the legs of the bees and 

 wasps of all kinds that visit them, and be carried away to the hives and nests 

 where they develop into beetles. If the adult beetles be touched, they emit a 

 yellow liquid from certain joints of their legs which raises blisters on the skin, 

 owing to its containing cantharidin, like the fluid emitted by the blister-beetle ; 

 and in some parts of Spain these insects are actually used instead of the latter, or are 

 mixed with them by druggists. The common oil-beetle (M. proscarabceus) ranges 

 from about an inch to 1£ inches in length, the male being distinguishable by a 

 hook-like bending of the antennae. In colour this beetle is bluish black, with a 

 violet hue, the thorax having a notch behind, the elytra being rough, and the 

 abdomen dark with a rough violet spot on each segment. 



The Tetramera are represented by the pea-beetles, which live mostly on 

 leguminous plants ; one of them (Bruchus granarius) feeding as a larva in peas, 

 beans, and other pods, and, in the tropics, on mimosas and acacias, as well as in 

 cocoa-nuts and cocoa-beans. This beetle is of oval shape and black colour, with 

 white dots on the thorax, and measures about half an inch in length. Another 



Oil-Beetle, etc. 



