OUTLINES OF ENTOMOLOGY. 63 



to a mere shell, which, serves as a sort of cocoon for the protection of 

 the pupa. 



Here also we find the common " Tumble-bug " or "Tumble-dung" 

 (Canthon Icevis, Drury), a much smaller, dark-brown species, usually 

 seen in pairs rolling a ball of manure about the size of a large marble. 

 This species affords one of the rare instances in which the male assists 

 the female in making provision for the young. When a suitable spot 

 is found, a shaft is sunk four or five inches into the earth, the ball 

 rolled in, and the female, after pausing long enough to deposit an egg 

 upon it, begins filling up the hole, in which labor her partner assists. 

 But little pains, however, is taken with this part of the work, and often 

 the hole is left partly unfilled. A beautiful species, somewhat larger 

 than the above, has similar habits. This is (Phanceus carnifex, Linn.) 

 It is of a metallic green color with copper-colored thorax, which in the 

 male is adorned with a backward curving horn. 



The APHODIDJE are all small shining black or black and red 

 beetles, which sometimes astonish gardeners by the numbers in which 

 they appear in green-houses and on hot- bed sashes, having bred from 

 the manure used as a fertilizer. 



The family TROGID^E includes but one genus, Trox. The most 

 common species are small, dingy, black, roundish beetles, often attracted 

 to the light at night. They are distinguished by the widely dilated 

 thighs of the front legs and by the deeply ridged and pitted surface of 

 the thorax and wing covers. 



The Leaf-chafers, Herbivorous Lamellicorns, are distinguished from 

 the manure-beetles by their more slender legs, long sharp claws, and 

 by the tip of the abdomen projecting slightly beyond the wing covers. 

 They feed entirely on vegetable matter, and unlike most other insects 

 in their perfect state, the beetles themselves often do great damage to 

 flowers and foliage. Many of the larvae live underground, subsisting 

 on the roots of grasses and other valuable plants ; others are found in 

 rotten wood or other decaying vegetation. They are fat, white, wrinkled 

 grubs, with horny heads, long, sprawling legs, and the hinder part of 

 the body in many species thicker than the remainder, and filled with 

 dark waste matter. 



, This group has been separated into four families : the Monarch 

 beetles ( Dynastidce ) , the Dor beetles or May beetles (Helonthidce), the 

 Brilliant chafers (Rutelidccj, and the Flower chafers (Cetoncedw). 

 Among the Monarch beetles we find the largest insects in the Order. 

 One species, sometimes called the Ehinocerus beetle (Dynastes tit y us, 

 Linn.), is often seen in the Southern and Middle States. It is fully two 



E 5 



