284 



INJUEIOUS INSECTS 



days, or just at twilight. The larva is a dark-colored, 

 nearly black, ferocious-looking creature, and when full 

 grown is nearly two inches in length. When it is not 

 gorged with food it runs rapidly over the ground, but 

 I have often found it in such a condition that it 

 could scarcely move from the excess of its gluttony. 

 Its favorite food is cut-worms, and, like its parents, 

 it hunts mostly at night, hiding away from the direct 

 rays of the sun under rubbish, and sometimes burrowing 

 in the earth. Its mode of attacking a Cut-worm is 

 always by seizing the throat, and it never lets go its 

 told until it has extracted the juices of its writhing 



victim, when it leaves the 

 limp, dead body, and goes 

 in pursuit of another. 



Calosoma scrutator (fig. 

 165) is another Lion-beetle 

 which is more noticeable 

 and finer looking than the 

 first mentioned. The wing- 

 cases are a bright golden- 

 green, and the rest of the 

 body is marked with gold, 

 violet-blue and green. It 

 is somewhat larger and has 

 longer legs than its darker 

 relative. It does not shun the light, but seems to 

 enjoy the bright sunshine, as if aware that its resplendent 

 colors were shown with dazzling effect by the sun's rays. 

 It kills and eats all soft-bodied larvae apparently with 

 equal relish. In New Jersey it has learned that it can 

 find good prey by hunting in the corn-fields. It 

 mounts a stalk of corn and runs over the ear, now and 

 then standing perfectly still as if listening. If a worm is 

 in the ear it soon finds it, pulls it out and devours it. 

 The larva of this fine beetle looks much like the other ; 



"Big. 165.— CALOSOMA SOBUTATOB. 



