THE CLICK BEETLES. 



717 



KEY TO GENERA OE CHALCOLEPIDIINI. 



a. Thorax without large velvety black spots ; scutelluin obcordate ; margin 

 of elytra obsolete on basal half ; antenna? of male pectinate. 



Chalcolepidius. 



aa. Thorax with two large velvety black spots on disk; scutellurn oval; ely- 

 tra strongly margined. XV. Alaus. 

 Chalcolepidius viridipilis Say. black, densely clothed with mi- 

 nute olive-gray scales, length 22.5 mm., occurs in the Middle and 

 Southern States and is recorded from Cincinnati. 



XV. Alaus Esch. 1S36. (Gr., ' 1 wander. ") 



The characters of this genus are sufficiently set forth above. 

 Two of the five known North American species occur in Indiana. 



1353 (4093). Alaus oculatus Linn.. Syst. Nat., II, 1766, 651. 

 Elongate, subconvex. Black, shining ; marked with 



small, irregularly disposed blotches of pale silvery 

 scales ; each side of thorax with a large rounded black 

 eye-like spot surrounded by a ring of pale scales. Ely- 

 tra distinctly striate; intervals convex, finely and 

 sparsely punctulate. Length 28-45 mm. (Fig. 277.) 



Throughout the State; frequent in the south- 

 ern portion; less so in the northern counties. 

 March 16-October 21. This is the best known 

 member of the family in the State. The adult 

 usually begins to occur in numbers about mid- 

 April and is then to be found beneath the loose 

 bark of half-rotten stumps or logs, in orchards 

 or dry. open woodland. I once took a single 

 male from beneath some honeycomb in a dense woods in Marion 

 County on March 16. It was as lively as though it were midsum- 

 mer, though the mercury had been far below the freezing point 

 only two days before. The larva, when nearly full grown, is a 

 smooth cylindrical worm nearly two and a half inches long and 

 four-fifths of an inch wide across the middle of the body; of a 

 creamy yellow color, with the head and one or two front segments 

 brown and the last segment black, with a semicircular notch at 

 end. It lives upon and in decaying wood and is often to be found 

 in the trunks of old apple trees. 



1354 ( 4094). Alaus mtops Fabr.. Syst. Eleut.. II, 1S01. 222. 



Elongate, subconvex. Black, feebly shining, sparsely clothed with 

 irregular pubescence. Thorax longer than wide, feebly convex, slightly 

 wider in front ; disk with eye-like spots narrow, elliptical, black, smaller 



Fig. 277. (After Harris.) 



