34 COLEOPTEEA. 



thicker, and much smaller in size. The first of them, the 

 vespertine or evening Omaloplia, is bay-brown ; the wing- 

 covers are marked with many longitudinal shallow fiirrows, 

 which, with the thorax, are thickly punctured. This beetle 

 varies in length from three to four tenths of an inch. Oma- 

 loplia sericea, the silky Omaloplia, closely resembles the pre- 

 ceding in everything but its color, which is a very deep 

 chestnut-brown, iridescent or changeable like satin, and re- 

 flecting the colors of the rainbow. 



All these Melolonthians are nocturnal insects, never ap- 

 pearing, except hj accident, in the day, during which they 

 remain under shelter of the foliage of trees and shrubs, or 

 concealed in the grass. Others are truly day-fliers, commit- 

 ting their ravages by the light of the sun, and are conse- 

 quently exposed to observation. 



One of our diurnal jNIelolonthians is supposed by many nat- 

 Fig. lo. uralists to be the Anomala variayis (Fig. 15) 



of Fabricius ; and it agrees very well with 

 this writer's description of the lucicola ; but 

 Professor Germar thinks it to be an unde- 

 scribed species, and proposes to name it coe- 

 lehs. It resembles the vine-chafer of Europe 

 in its habits, and is found in the months of 

 J\me and July on the cultivated and wild 

 gi-ape-vines, the leaves of wliich it devours. During the same 

 period, these chafers may be seen in still gi-eater numbers on 

 various hinds of sumach, which they often completely despoil 

 of their leaves. They are of a broad oval shape, and very 

 variable in color. The head and thorax of the male are 

 greenish black, margined with didl ochre or tile-red and 

 thickly punctured ; the wing-covers are clay-yellow, irregu- 

 larly furrowed, and punctured in the furrows ; the legs are 

 pale red, brown, or black. The thorax of the female is clay- 

 yellow, or tile-red, sometimes vnth two oblique blackish spots 

 on the top, and sometimes ahnost entirely black ; the wing- 

 covers resemble those of the male; the legs are clay-yellow, 



