GIANT CLICK BEETLES. 



55 



in his thought. Experience has taught me, as 

 it will every man in time, that health and content- 

 ment are the two most precious gifts vouchsafed to 

 mortal man during his brief sojourn here on earth. 

 They alone- make up what the average person calls 

 "happiness here below." 



Tearing off the bark from the base of a rotten pine 

 stump I make my first capture of the morning a fe- 

 male of the large southern Ela- 

 terid, or click beetle, Alaus my ops 

 Fabr. It is one and one-half 

 inches in length, and is the sec- 

 ond largest representative of its 

 family occurring in the United 

 States, being exceeded only by A. 

 oculatus L., which ranges farther 

 north. A female of the latter 

 species from Indiana measures 

 one and three-quarters inches. 

 The males of both species are 

 smaller, averaging but little over 

 an inch in length. A. my ops is 

 dark brown, clouded with ash gray, and the eye-like 

 velvet spots on the pro-thorax are dim and narrowly 

 oval ; whereas oculatus is black, sprinkled here and 

 there with silver gray, and has the eye spots round 

 and prominent. The larval stage of both is passed in 

 decaying oak, apple and pine wood. 



The members of the family Elateridce, of which 

 A. myops and A. oculatus are the giant representa- 



Fig. 14. 



Alan* oculatus I,. 



