INSECT LIFE IN INDIA. 



437 



the name of H. dominus* whilst Oberthur thinks there are two distinct 

 species, H. dominus in Assam and H. mouhoutus in Burma and the 

 Malays, an opinion the writer himself supports. These beetles feed on 

 elephant dung, rolling it into large balls which are intermixed with clay, 

 or they make large balls of the dung and surround them with large clay 

 wedge-shaped masses as shown in Fig. d, Plate II. In these latter balls 

 an egg is laid and the grub on hatching out feeds upon the ball of 

 duno-. When full fed, by which time it has eaten all the material, it 

 pupates in the hollow which now exists in the clay mass (vide Fig. c). 

 The habits of these beetles still require further study, but the insect is to 

 be found in the larval and pupal forms in January of the year, the 

 beetle probably issuing sometime during the rainy months. 



nth o p ha gus 

 igneus (Plate III., 

 Fig. 2) is a beautiful 

 little Coprid, with a 

 golden coppery head 

 and thorax and deep 

 blue elytra, found in 

 Southern India. 

 Catharsius molos- 

 sus, Linn, of which 

 the $ and $ are 

 shown in Fig. 102 

 is a common 



$ Wt; 



Fig. 102. — Catharsius molossns (Burma) 

 $ right. 



Burman coprid beetle. Leucophilis crassa is a brown beetle covered 

 with a yellow pulverescence and is to be found round Darjiling. It is 

 depicted in Plate III., Fig. 3. 



The Melolonthtd^s are probably as numerous as the Coprides or 

 nearly so as ovor 4,000 species are known and it is practically certain 

 that there remain many small Indian species to be described. The beetles 

 though varying in size are more or less squarish in build, of some shade 

 of black grey, brown or dull green ; the elytra always leave exposed two 

 segments of the body (pygidium) behind, which is not the invariable rule 

 amongst the Cetoniides, the last abdominal segment being often more or 

 less pointed. The male can be recognised from the female beetle by the 



* Heliocopris mouhoutus and dominus by D. Sharp. Fasciculi Malayensii?, Zoology, Part 

 II, ~N. Annandale and H. C. Bobinson, University Press, Liverpool. 



