THE FLOWER-BEETLES. 89 



pastures, and consume it, with the sluggish rose-buds, on 

 the spot. 



Our insect-eating birds undoubtedly devour many of these 

 insects, and deserve to be cherished and protected for their 

 services. Rose-bugs are also eaten greedily by domesticated 

 fowls; and when they become exhausted and fall to the 

 ground, or when they are about to lay their eggs, they are 

 destroyed by moles, insects, and other animals, which lie in 

 wait to seize them. Dr. Green informs us, that a species of 

 dragon-fly, or devil's-needle, devours them. He also says 

 that an insect, which he calls the enemy of the cut-worm, 

 probably the larva of a Carabus or predaceous ground-beetle, 

 preys on the grubs of the common dor-bug. In France the 

 golden ground-beetle QCarabus auratus) devours the female 

 dor or chafer at the moment when she is about to deposit her 

 eggs. I have taken one specimen of this fine ground-beetle 

 in Massachusetts, and we have several other kinds, equally 

 predaceous, which probably contribute to check the increase 

 of our native Melolonthians. 



Very few of the flower-beetles are decidedly injurious to 

 vegetation. Some of them are said to eat leaves ; but the 

 greater number live on the pollen and the honey of flowers, 

 or upon the sap that oozes from the wounds of plants. In 

 the infant or grub state, most of them eat only the crumbled 

 substance of decayed roots and stumps ; a few live in the 

 wounds of trees, and by their depredations prevent them 

 from healing, and accelerate the decay of the trunk. 



The flower-beetles belong chiefly to a group called Ceto- 

 niadje, or Cetonians. They are easily distinguished from the 

 other Scaraba^ians by their lower jaws, which are generally 

 soft on the inside, and are often provided with a flat brush of 

 hairs, that serves to collect the pollen and juices on which 

 they subsist. Their upper jaws have no grinding plate on 

 the inside. Their antennae consist of ten joints, the last three 

 of which form a three-leaved oval knob. The head is often 

 square, with a large and wide visor, overhanging and entirely 



