CATALOGUE OF INSECTS. 335 



DENDROIDES Lee. 



D. canadensis Latr. Hopatcong (Pm), Palisades, VII, bred (Lv), Caldwell 

 (Cr), Orange Mts., West Bergen, under bark (Bf). 



Family MELOID-ffi. 



Contains the " oil beetles " and " blister beetles." They are soft in texture, 

 usually slender and cylindrical, the thorax narrower than either head or elytra. 

 The antennae are moderate in length, sometimes curiously knotted or otherwise 

 modified in the male, and the insects are as a whole loose-jointed and sprawly 

 in appearance. They vary in color, and are often striped or spotted sometimes 

 metallic and occasionally banded. In the adult stage they feed on plant tissue, 

 and are sometimes seriously harmful. One of them is known as the "old 

 fashioned potato beetle," and this frequently comes in swarms in late summer, 

 occasionally with or replaced by an ally, and it, or they, sweep through a gar- 

 den or field before the farmer realizes the nature of the attack. They especially 

 favor beets and certain composite when in flower, a black species occurring in 

 swarms locally on the golden-rod. As a rule they disappear as suddenly as they 

 come, some species being found in swarms on one day only. Others remain a 

 week or two, and are then best gathered into kerosene pans, if at all possible. 

 The arsenites kill them slowly, and a swarm that feeds for a day or two before 

 application is made and a day or two before the specimens die has done about 

 as much injury as would have been caused without treatment of any kind. 

 Driving them off is sometimes practiced with fair success, and may be resorted 

 to when circumstances favor the method. 



Curiously enough, many of these insects are markedly beneficial in the larval 

 stage, since they form one of the most important checks to grasshopper increase. 

 The eggs are laid in a variety of places, but always the young active creatures 

 that hatch from them hunt up a grasshopper egg-pod and reach their full devel- 

 opment there. A season when grasshoppers have been unusually abundant is 

 almost certain to be followed by one in which blister beetles become destructive, 

 while grasshopper increase depends upon droughty conditions in late summer. 



The life cycle is interesting, and some of the species live in the nests of 

 bumble and other bees, hence are injurious in this stage also. 



MELOE Linn. 



M. angusticollis Say. Madison (Pr), Caldwell (Cr), g. d., late in fall on 



wild turnips (Bf). 

 M. americanus Leach. Newark (Soc), Orange Mts., rare (Bf i. 



NEMOGNATHA 111 

 N. nemorensis Hentz. Eastern New Jersey (Dietz). 



