34 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



lemale fly. The partiuulur species of Lacewing 

 fly tliat preys in this savu.ue iiiuniier upon the 

 Cui-eulio hirva I was not alile to aseei-tain, as I 

 tailed to breed the larva to maturity. But there 

 is sueli a strong general resemblance between all 

 the diftercut species of this genus, both in tlie 

 larva and in the perfect slate, that scarcely any 

 one but a professional entomologist could dis- 

 tinguish one from anotlier when placed side by 

 side. All the Lacewing flics, it may be remarked 

 licrc, are cannibals, and they prey upon a great 

 variety of noxious insects, including botli Plant- 

 lice and Bark-lice. 



But wonders will never cease. It has hitherto 

 been currently supposed that no insect, whether 

 cannibal or parasite, preys upon the Curculio ; 

 and, so far as regards the parasites, I believe 

 that this theory is correct. But now I discover 

 a second species, and tliis time not a Neuropter- 

 ous insect like the Lacewing fly, but a true 

 Beetle (order of Coleoptera), which has appa- 

 rently been engaged in the same ^(mhI work as 

 his remotely-allied cousin. Inside a peach, whirli 

 has been completely excavated by Curculio 

 larvffi, friend Holcomb shows me the rare little 

 Ground-beetle {Carabus family) figured in the 

 [Fig. 2.1.] margin {Aspidoglossa stihcmgu- 



\ . Za^a,Chaud.,Fig. 25). What is 



"VVW/^' he doing there? Clearly he has 



« j^t J "O taste for vegetable food, for 



\flAr all the North American species 



3R^ of the very extensive family to 



/B|H|F\ T which he belongs are, so far as 

 / iH^HjN- J_ is known, cannibals. In all pro- 



/ yKt \ bability he has been eating up 

 / ^^ \ tlie miscliievous grubs that had 

 coioi-shiiiy black, hoiieycombed tills peach ! At 

 all events, he is to be strongly suspected of so do- 

 ing. To adopt Shakspearc's mode of reasoning : 



' ' Wlio (inds the heifer dead, and bleeding IVesh, 

 And sees fast by a butcher with an axe, 

 But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?" 



So far wc have discovered two distinct insects 

 depredating upon the Curculio lai-vie above 

 ground, and wliile it is still inside the fruit which 

 it attacks. Perhaps, when it has left the fruit 

 and gone underground, it is safe from its can- 

 nibal foes. No sucli tiling! Friend Leming, 

 after digging with a lioc for some time among 

 the loose earth under apcacli tree, finds at length 

 lor me a certain larva, which he has long ob- 

 served to prey upon the Curculio larvas under- 

 ground. It is now comparatively rare, as he 

 informs ine, but in the spring he had found 

 thousands of them in the earth under Ms peach 

 trees, and had tried in vain to breed them to the 



perfect state. For, although they seemed to 

 relish Cureulio larvte that he had dug up under- 

 ground, yet he could not, he says, get them to 

 feed freely upon sucli as he took out of the fruit. 

 Annexed will be found a correct sketch of this 



[Fig. 20.] 



/,® l^ J^ 

 Colurs— Brown and wliitlsh, 



insect (Fig. 26 A). B represents the underside 

 of tlie head, showing at c the upper jaw (man- 

 dible), at g the lower jaw {maxil), with its 

 four-jointed feelers {palpi), at/ the lower lip 

 {labium), with its two-jointed feelers {palpi), 

 and at e the antenna.* 



Clearly tliis is the larva of some Ground-beetle. 

 But of what particular species? That can onl)^ 

 be satisfactorily proved by breeding the larva to 

 the perfect beetle state, which I hope to do, al- 

 though all these cannibal larvfe arc more or less 

 hard to breed. In the meantime, wliile Mr. 

 Leming has been digging under his peach trees, 

 I have discovered among the loose earth four dif- 

 ferent Idnds of Ground-beetles, two of wliich are 



Coloi^Shioy blaclt. 



represented in Figures 27 and 28, and to any one 

 of wliicli four my larva may possibly belong. 



• Here follows the technical description of this larva, 

 taken ti-om the living insect: Shining browu-black and 

 horny above; thorax immaculate above ; sutures and sides 

 of the abdominal dorsimi, and all beneath, except the head, 

 pale dull greenish white; a narrow, horny, elongate, abbre- 

 viated lateral dark stripe on the dorsum of each of the ab- 

 dominal joints (4— 12); joints!— 10 beneath, each with seven 

 pale-brown horny spots, namely a large subquadrate spot 

 followed by two small dots in the middle, an elongate spot 

 on each side, and between that and the two medial small 

 dots a second elongate spot, only half the length and breadth 

 of the lateral one (Fig. 20, j); joint 11 beneath has only the 

 medial subquadrate spot and the lateral elongate one (Fig. 26, 

 i) ; and joint 12 beneath has nothing but the subquadrate spot 

 (Fig. 20, ft); legs six, of a pale rufous color; the usual 

 elongate cai-.ibidous proleg on joint 12, and on each side of 

 its tip an elongate exarticulate cei-cus, garnished with a few 

 haii-s; antennse four-jointed; labial palpi two-jointed; 

 maxillary palpi four-jointed. Length 1.25 inch. 



