288 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
Part 51 
AQUATIC CHRYSOMELIDAE 
AND A TABLE OF THB 
FAMILIES OF COLEOPTEROUS LARVAE 
BY ALEX. D. MACGILLIVRAY 
Beetles are among the most abundant of insects. They are 
easily collected and prepared for the cabinet and probably for 
this reason are more extensively studied and collected than any 
other order. Their larvae and pupae are usually soft bodied 
and inconspicuous and in most cases are very difficult to rear 
to maturity. It is probably due to these latter conditions that 
the transformations of only a very small proportion of our 
beetles are known. The habits of their larvae are more varied 
than those of the other orders; some are predaceous, feeding 
on the larvae of other insects; some are scavengers, feeding on 
decaying plants and animals, dried skins, hair and bones; some 
are herbivorous, feeding on the roots, stems and leaves of 
plants, mining their leaves, living within their seeds, forming 
galls on their leaves, or tunneling through the trunks of trees; 
some feed on and destroy many kinds of prepared food products, 
while others live commensally within the nests of insects. 
Though the majority of the species are terrestrial, yet many 
are found on the surface and within the water of ponds and 
streams. 
There have not been any extended investigations dealing with 
the transformations of American Coleoptera. The work done 
thus far consists mainly of scattered descriptions by govern- 
ment and state entomologists in bulletins, reports and ento- 
mological magazines, and they have dealt in great part only 
with those species that are of economic importance in some 
phase of their life history. 
The most important publications for the student of the life 
histories of American Coleoptera are the following: 
Beutenmuller, William. Bibliographical Catalogue of the Described 
Transformations of North American Coleoptera. N. Y. Micro. Soc. Jour. 
VII, 1891. 7:1-52. 
This paper gives all the references to descriptions and figures of 
American beetle larvae and pupae previous to this date and should be in 
the hands of every American student of this subject. 
‘Not edited according to the rules of the University. 
