THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



35 



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

 by far the most iiiimorous, absolutely swarm- 

 ing in all directions under ground, and as 

 I met with tliis 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 

 that appertains to my larva. There can be but 

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

 whether in the larva or beetle state, would have 

 greedily devoured any curculio grubs 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- 

 larvffi, 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 everywhere in the Northern States, 

 and that it very frequently, as well as many 

 other Gi-ound-beetles, flies into houses by night, 

 attracted by the lights. Spare their lives, ye 

 ruthless haters of cvcrytliing that you lump to- 

 gether under the general term of "Bugs;" for 

 they are your best friends, and even tlie old 

 heathen philosophers, tliough 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 difierent 

 species of insects, two of which demonstrably 

 feed upon Curculio larvas, while the remaining 

 lour may be strongly suspected of so doing. 

 After I had got home, Mr. Leming was kind 

 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. "Four of them," he wrote to me, 

 "were taken out of peaches that had contained 

 the lai-va of the Curculio, the other two were 

 lurking under a peach. They take the gi'ub, I 

 think, 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 larva squirmed 

 dreadfully, but in vain, for his remorseless 

 foe held liim tight, and he soon gave up the 

 ghost. My acquaintance with tliis cannibal is 

 but very slight, as it is only two or tlu-ee days 

 since I first discovered him." I may add here 

 that I saw with my own eyes one of these same 

 lai-vae, that Mr. Leming had sent me, fasten upon 

 a small Curculio grub, with which I had sup- 



" These foiir beetles are Harpalm pennsi/tvaniciti, DeGeer 

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

 lirecediiig; Evarthrua orbatua, Newmau (Fig, 28), ami a 

 small si)ecicb of Evarthrua that I had never hitherto met 

 with, the obaotetus ol'LoConte. 



plied liim, 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. 



[Fig. 29.] Figure 29 a gives a 



view of this seventh 

 benefactor of the 

 peach-grower drawn 

 from the living in- 

 sect; b showing a 

 magnified figure of 



Coloi^Rich reddish brown. thC llCad aud itS 



members, h the left upper jaw (mandible), /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 this 

 species to the six referred to above, we get no 

 less than three cannibal larvae 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. 

 We 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 difiicult ques- 

 tion to answer. The study of the larvas 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 (Telephortt's 

 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 tlie technical description of this larva, drawn 

 up from the living specimen : Head shining rufous, with two 

 black patches behind, transversely arranged; labrum re- 

 tractile, dark colored, horny and deeply emarginate with 

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

 2-jointed; antenna 3-jointed, the last joint vei-y 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 tlie body except the anal 

 one, makmg 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. Soc. Phil, iii., pp. 

 568-9.] 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 curve, with its con- 

 cavity upwards ; legssiji; a moderate anal proleg; length 

 0.65 inch. 



