INSECT ENEMIES OF EASTERN FORESTS 209 
Epuraea spp. are common between the bark and wood of dead 
trees. The larvae of the first-mentioned species are commonly asso- 
ciated with the sap-exuding wounds of young locust borer larvae in 
the spring of the year. Often they are completely enclosed in the 
larval mines, especially in those in which the borer has died. They 
are not predaceous. 
Famity COCCINELLIDAE 
The Ladybirds 
The ladybird beetles are small round, convex, or hemispherical 
forms, usually less than 5 mm. in length, having their shining bodies 
often spotted or marked with red, yellow, black, or white. The broad 
hatchet-shaped joints of the maxillary palpi and the three-jointed 
tarsi are additional distinguishing characters. 
The larvae of the lady beetles are soft skinned, fleshy, elongate, 
tapering, often humpbacked, and frequently highly colored, and are 
provided with numerous hairs, spines, or tubercles. They have a 
large, protruding, globular head and prominent well-developed, five- 
jointed legs. The ventral mouth parts are fleshy and deeply re- 
tracted. ‘The mandible is sickle-shaped and provided with a molar 
structure grinding against a well-developed hypopharyngeal chitini- 
zation (except in ’pilachna). The cardo is indistinct, and there are 
three ocellhi. 
Most forms commonly met with in the forest are decidedly beneficial, 
being predaceous on various species of plant lice, scale insects, insect 
eggs, and small larvae. Both adults and larvae have similar habits 
and are usually associated on the plant when their food is abundant. 
These beetles probably play a major part in holding down outbreaks 
of plant lee or scales, yet our knowledge of their behavior and im- 
portance in the forest is decidedly superficial. The larvae of these 
forms are so imperfectly known that it is not possible to treat them 
at this time. A few forms, as the Mexican bean beetle (/'pilachna 
varivestis Muls.), feed on the leaves of plants and cause serious defoli- 
ation, while some others feed on pollen or spores of fungi. 
The ladybird beetle lays its eggs, which are often colored, in clusters 
on the plant where its prey feeds. The larvae slowly move about, feed- 
ing until full grown, when they attach themselves by their tails to 
some object, usually the plant on which they fed, and there pupate. 
The larval skin is bunched behind the pupa. Several generations occur 
during the year. The beetles pass the winter as adults, some species 
congregating in great numbers to hibernate, at which time they are 
collected and then liberated in scale-infested orchards. Some of the 
forms more commonly represented in the forest-insect collections are 
the following: 
The two-spotted lady beetle (Adalia bipunctata (L.)) is a broadly 
oval beetle, about 3 to 5 mm. long, having the head and thorax black, 
the former with two yellow spots between the eyes and the latter with 
yellow margins; the wing covers are red with a black central spot. 
This is a European species, but now very abundant in the Northern 
States, where it feeds on aphids on hardwood trees. It commonly 
hibernates in houses in the winter. 
