132 
COLEOPTERA. 
fitted for leaping. The colors of these beetles are often rich 
and brilliant, among which blue and green, highly polished, 
and with a golden or metallic lustre, are the most common 
tints. The larvae are soft-bodied, short, thick, and slug¬ 
shaped grubs, with six legs before, and a prop-leg behind. 
They live exposed on the leaves of plants, which they eat, 
and to which most of them fasten themselves by the tail, 
when about to be transformed. Some, however, go into 
the ground when about to change to pupae. Many of these 
insects, both in the larva and beetle state, have been found 
to be very injurious to vegetation in other countries; but I 
am not aware that any of them have proved seriously injuri¬ 
ous to cultivated or other valuable plants in this country. 
There are some, it is true, which may hereafter increase so 
as to give us much trouble, unless effectual means are taken 
to protect and cherish their natural enemies, the birds. 
The largest species in New England inhabits the common 
milk-weed, or silk-weed (^Asclepias Syriaca)^ upon which it 
may be found, in some or all of its states, from the middle 
of June till September. Its head, thorax, body beneath, an¬ 
tennae, and legs are deep blue, and its wing-covers orange, 
with three large black spots upon them, namely, one on the 
shoulder, and another on the tip of each, and the third across 
the base of both wing-covers. Hence it was named Chry- 
somela trimaculata by Fabricius, or the three-spotted Chry- 
somela (Plate II. Fig. 9). It is nearly three eighths of an 
inch long, and almost hemispherical. Its larvae and pupae 
are orange-colored, spotted with black, and pass through 
their transformations on the leaves of the Asclepias. 
The most elegant of our Chrysomelians is the Chrysomela 
Fig. 59 . scalaris of Leconte, literally the ladder Chryso¬ 
mela (Fig. 59). It is about three tenths of an 
inch long, and of a narrower and more regularly 
oval shape than the preceding. The head, tho¬ 
rax, and under side of its body are dark green, 
the wing-covers silvery white, ornamented with small green 
