THE FLOWER-BEETLES. 
89 
pastures, and consume it, with the sluggish rose-huds, 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 infonns us, that a species of 
dracron-flv, 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 gi’ound-beetle, 
preys on the grubs of the common dor-bug. In France the 
golden ground-beetle (Carahus 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 iMelolonthians. 
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 flow^ers, 
or upon the sap that oozes from the wounds of plants. In 
the infant or grub state, most of them eat only the cmmbled 
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 gi’oup called Ceto- 
NiAD^, or Cetonians. Thev are easilv distimmished from the 
other Scarab(eians 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 wdiich form a three-leaved oval knob. The head is often 
square, with a large and wide visor, overhanging and entirely 
