287 



ber-land, and usually on foot-paths leading through the woods. Does 

 its larva burrow in decayed wood and prey upon timber-borers ? All 

 known Cicindelidous larvse , burrow in the earth, but the imagos of 

 certain foreign species, found in tropical America, are said by West- 

 wood to haunt the leaves of trees, instead of the ground. (Westw. 

 Intr. Classif. T. p. 49.) 



CoTALPA (akeoda) lanigeka, Linn. On five separate occasions 

 I have known the imago of this insect to be dug up in garden ground 

 early in May, whence I infer that its larva feeds upon living roots, like 

 that of the well-known May-beetle, (^Lachnosterna quercina) and the Eu- 

 ropean cockchafer (Melolontha vulgaris.) The closely-allied Pelidnota 

 punctata Linn., on the contrary, lives in the larva state in rotten 

 wood, whence I have myself bred it, and where it is recorded to 

 breed by Dr. Harris. (Inj. Ins. p. 26.) Similarly the great majority 

 of Elateridse breed in rotten wood ; but the larvae of certain Euro- 

 pean species, and, as I believe from having bred the imago from gar- 

 den-soil, that of the American Cratonyclius incertus Lee, feed on the 

 roots of living plants. An elateride larva (species unknown) has 

 been observed by me to be very destructive to young corn plants 

 in the West on newly-broken prairie, devouring the portion of the 

 stem which lies under ground. 



Xyloryctes Satyeus, Fabr. The larva of this species does not 

 feed on decayed wood, as the generic name (Anglice timber-digger) 

 would lead us to suppose, and as do the allied genera Dynastes and 

 Phileurus, but on the roots of living grass. It is very large, white, 

 and remarkable for the head being coal-black and coarsely punctate, 

 and in its general appearance it closely resembles the larva of Lach- 

 nosterna. In the spring of 1861 I bred the imago fi'om a larva found 

 late in the preceding autumn under a flat stone in a grassy place in the 

 woods. In the latter part of September, 1861, having found another lar- 

 va similarly situated, I carefully replaced the stone, and, on revisiting it 

 some weeks afterwards, found, a few inches under the surface, the 

 track by which the larva had travelled off, consuming the roots of the 

 grass as it went. I am informed by my ornithological friend. Dr. 

 Velie, of Rock Island, that he has found larv«, which from his de- 

 scription must be those of this insect, two or three feet below the sur- 

 face, in the spring of the year, on digging out the nests of bank- 

 swallows in a grassy spot several hundred feet from the nearest 

 timber. Hence we may conclude that it burrows deeply into the 

 earth to pass the winter. 



