THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



35 



But us the first one of tlic four (Fig. 27) is 

 by far tlic most numerous, absolutely swarm- 

 ing in all directions under ground, and as 

 I met with this species in the perfect beetle state 

 among the roots of peach trees seven years ago 

 in South Illinois, I rather guess it to be the one 

 (hat appertains to my larva. Thei-e can be but 

 little doubt, however, that any one of the four,* 

 ■ivlu'ther in the larva or beetle state, would have 

 greedily devoured any curculio gnibs that they 

 came across in the course of their travels under 

 ground. For most of these Ground-beetles are 

 pretty general feeders ; and when I got my larva 

 home, I discovered that he would feed upon 

 grasshoppers just as readily as upon curculio- 

 lai-va;, though he was so dainty that he would not 

 touch either house-flies or apple- worms. It may 

 be as well to add, that the species shown in Fig. 

 27 swarms everjTvhere in the Northern States, 

 and that it very frequently, as well as many 

 other Ground-beetles, flics into houses by night, 

 attracted by the lights. Spare their lives, ye 

 iiithless haters of everytliing that you lump to- 

 gether under the general term of "Bugs;" for 

 they are your best friends, and even the old 

 lieathen philosophers, though they upheld the 

 practice of doing as much harm as possible to 

 one's foes, pronounced it to be a base and mean 

 thing to injure one's own friends. 



Here, then, we have no less than six diflerent 

 species of insects, two of which demonstrably 

 feed upon Curculio larv», while the remaining 

 tour may be strongly suspected of so doing. 

 jVftcr I had got home, Mr. Leming was land 

 enough to send me six specimens of the larva of 

 another, and a very distinct Beetle, all six of 

 them taken on the ground under one and the 

 same peach tree. "Fourof them," he wrote tome, 

 " were taken out of peaches that had contained 

 the larva of the Curculio, the other two were 

 lurking under a peach. They take the grub, I 

 tliink, before it enters the earth. I had the satis- 

 faction of seeing one of them fasten his jaws upon 

 the larva of the Little Turk. The lai-va squirmed 

 dreadfully, but in vain, for his remorseless 

 foe held him tight, and he soon gave up the 

 ghost. My acquaintance with this cannibal is 

 but very slight, as it is only two or three days 

 since I first discovered hun." I may add here 

 that I saw with my own ejes one of these same 

 larvas, that Mr. Leming had sent me, fasten upon 

 a small Curculio grab, with which I had sup- 



•Thesc four beetles urc Harpalus pennsytvanicw, DeGeer 

 (Fig. 27) , Harpalua faunus, Say, very closely allied to the 

 preceding; Evarlhrus orbatus, Newman (Fij;. 2S), and a 

 small species of Evarthrus that I had never hitherto met 

 with, the oliaoleltts of LeCoute. 



plied him, and kill it in a very short time. Apple 

 worms and a variety of other insects, with which 

 I tried to tempt him, he would not touch. 



Figure 29 a gives a 

 view of this seventh 

 benefactor of the 

 peach-grower drawn 

 I'om the living in- > 

 sect; 6 showing a 

 magnified figure of 

 reddish brown. the head and its . 

 members, /i the left upper jaw {mandible) , f the 

 left lower jaw (maxil), c the under lip 

 (labium), d the upper lip (labrum), g the 

 antenna, and e one of the legs.* Adding tliis • 

 species to the six referred to above, we get no 

 less than three cannibal larva? that are actually 

 known to devour Curculio grubs, and four other 

 species that we may reasonably believe to do so. 

 But for the beneficent operations of these little 

 insignificant creatures, which most people, 

 whenever they got a chance, would pitilessly 

 crush under their feet, there can be but little 

 doubt that not a single bushel of peaches would 

 have been grown in Egypt for the last five years. 

 "VVe may be quite sure, from its structural 

 peculiarities, that the first larva figured above 

 (Fig. 26) is that of some ground-beetle or other. 

 But to what group of Beetles does this second 

 larva belong? That is a far more difficult ques- 

 tion to answer. The study of the larvfe of almost 

 all insects, except Moths and Butterflies, has 

 been so very generally neglected by the ento- 

 mologists of the United States, that we know 

 comparatively but little about them. I think, 

 however, from the close analogy which this 

 larva bears to certain European ones, that it 

 will prove to be that of some species or other of 

 a group of soft-shelled beetles {Telepliorus 

 family), which is common everywhere in the 

 Northern States. But this point can only be clearly 

 proved by breeding the larva itself to maturity. 



• I subjoin the technical desc 

 up from the living specimen: II 

 black patches behind, transv. 

 ti-actUe, dark colored, horny a 



, with two 



abrum re- 



rginate with 



a central tooth; maxillary palpi 4-joiuted; labial palpi 

 2-jointed; antenna 3-joiuted, the last joint very small; 

 body rather flattened, of an opaque velvety-brown color 

 above, with a somewhat darker subdorsal line, which is 

 widened on the three thoracic segments; a very distinct la- 

 teral spiracle to every segment of the body except the anal 

 one, making altogether eleven pairs of spiracles, all of them 

 exactly alike, and in range with each other. [See on this 

 mooted point my paper in Proc. Ent. Soo. Phil, iii., pp. 

 558-9. ] Body beneath suddenly very pale brown, the divid- 

 ing line between the darker and the paler shades of brown 

 upon each segment being a semicircular cur-ve, with its con- 

 cavity upwards ; legs six; a moder.ate anal proleg; length 

 O.G5inch. 



