THE CANTHARIDES. 135 



When it is fully grown, it stops up the open end of its case, 

 and changes to a pupa, and afterwards to a beetle within it, 

 and then gnaws a hole through the case, in order to escape. 

 As none of these insects have been observed to do much 

 injury to plants in tins country, I shall state nothing more 

 respecting them, than that Olythra dominicana u inhabits the 

 sumach, 0. quadriguttata^ oak-trees, Chlamys gibbosa low 

 whortleberry bushes, Cryptocephalus luridus the wild indigo- 

 bush, and most of the other species may be found on different 

 kinds of oaks. 



Although the blistering beetles, or Cantharides (Cantha- 

 ridiixe), have been enumerated among the insects directly 

 beneficial to man, On account of the important use made of 

 them in medical practice, yet it must be admitted that they 

 are often very injurious to vegetation. The green Canthar- 

 ides, or Spanish flies, as they are commonly called, are found 

 in the South of Europe, and particularly in Spain and Italy, 

 where they are collected in great quantities for exportation. 

 Tn these countries they sometimes appear in immense swarms, 

 on the privet, lilac, and ash ; so that the limbs of these plants 

 bend under their weight, and are entirely stripped of their 

 foliage by these leaf-eating beetles. In like manner our 

 native Cantharides devour the leaves of plants, and some- 

 times prove very destructive to them. 



The Cantharides are distinguished from all the preceding 

 insects by their feet, the hindmost pair of which have only 

 four joints, while the first and middle pairs are five-jointed. 

 In this" respect they agree with many other beetles, such as 

 clocks or darkling beetles, meal-beetles, some of the mush- 

 room-beetles, flat bark-beetles, and the like, with which they 

 form a large and distinct section of Coleopterous insects. 



[ u Gyth-a (Coscinoptera) dominicana. — Lec.] 

 [ 15 Gythra (Babia) quadriguttata. — Lec] 



