54 Trans. Acad, of St. Louis 



Babia quadriguttata Oliv. [E. A. Schwarz]. About a 

 dozen of these beetles were seen on a sumac, some in 

 copulo, on June 22, 1916. 



Gastroid'ea cyamea Melsh. [E. A. Schwarz]. A large 

 number of plants of sour-dock, Rumax, had, on April 4, 

 1914, a large number of adults of these blue beetles. On 

 April 14, none were to be seen, and careful scrutiny 

 proved that the adults had entirely disappeared. On 

 April 20, both adults and eggs were present again in 

 abundance. This was probably a new generation. On 

 that date, many dead adults were found on the ground, 

 showing that they were even then on the decline. On 

 April 29, the adult beetles were very scarce indeed, and 

 the eggs were fewer, but on the thousand or more dock 

 plants, all seemed infested — fairly alive — with larvae, in 

 various stages ranging from very small to half-grown. 

 Most of them were feeding on the under side of the 

 leaves, leaving the foilage dotted with transparent spots. 

 While one does not want to call the larvae gregarious, the 

 fact is that they actually did live in clusters or masses, 

 but this was probably due to the simple fact that their 

 food supply was so close at hand that they had little oc- 

 casion to wander from the place where they hatched from 

 the clusters of eggs. With very few exceptions, the eggs 

 as well as the larvae were on the under side of the leaf. 

 The largest groups of larvae were on the apex of the 

 plant, where the tender young shoots were being de- 

 voured. I did not ascertain whether the larvae had 

 migrated to the top, or whether the eggs had been de- 

 posited there. 



The following year, 1915, I was on the ground earlier, 

 and gathered more data on the life cycle of this beetle. 

 On March 27, with the weather quite cool and the sprout- 

 ing dock just raising its head above the ground, there 

 were no beetles on the dock in the open field. In a shelt- 

 ered spot under a large piece of building-paper which 

 had been thrown in the field, a few dock shoots were 



