ME. a. LEWIS ON JAPAJSTESE LANaURIID^. 349 



viduals of which, while usually cliuging to foliage, are, wheu dis- 

 turbed, instant in flight. 



In the imago state some of the Languriidte mount and cling 

 to the stems and leaves of brushwood ; others sit on the foliage 

 of various biennials and perennials growing in the moist and 

 half -shaded parts of forest ; and some smaller species, often having 

 blue elytra and a red thorax, frequent hillside debris, such as may 

 be likened to haystack-refuse. Those on the low herbage may be 

 swept off and obtained in abundance in the right localities ; and 

 the prevailing colour of the species of this habit is geneous or 

 brassy green. This is all that was known about the habits of the 

 Languriidse until a notice appeared by Prof. J. H. Comstock in the 

 Annual Eeport of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, 

 1879, where he traces the life-history of Languria Mozardi from 

 the egg to the emergence of the imago. As his observations well 

 deserve the notice of entomologists on this side of the Atlantic, 

 I have thought it well to copy them in extenso : — 



" In localities where this beetle is abundant, if the stems of 

 red clover be carefully examined some time in June, on many of 

 them will be seen one or more small discolotired spots, which seem 

 to have been made by the gnawing of some insect. If one cuts 

 into the stems at one of these spots, a slender yellowish egg 

 1*7 millim. (about Jg inch) long, rounded at both ends, and some- 

 what curved, will be found imbedded in the pith, the gnawing 

 having evidently been done for the purpose of penetrating the 

 comparatively hard exterior and allowing the egg to be easily 

 pushed in. Often the egg is found as far as 6 millim. (nearly 

 5 inch) from the opening, which shows that the mother insect 

 must have forced her whole body into it, 



"The larvae hatching from these eggs are slender, almost 

 worm-like in form, and feed exclusively upon the pith of the 

 stalk. "While they do not kill the stem outright, they gradually 

 weaken it, and eventually cause its destruction, having also, of 

 course, a very injurious eftect upon the maturing of the seed. 

 The egg is usually laid high up in the stem, and the larva usually 

 burrows downwards, often extending its work for a distance of 

 from six to eight inches below the point of entrance. The full- 

 grown larva is about 8 millim. (f inch) in length, yellow in colour, 

 with six prominent thoracic legs, and a prop-leg at the posterior 

 end of the body. The last segment of the body has two stiff, 

 slightly upward-curved spines above. Upon attaining full growth, 



27* 



