34 
COLEOPTERA. 
thicker, and much smaller in size. The first of them, the 
vespertine or evening Omaloplia, is bay-brown ; the wing- 
covers are marked with many longitudinal shallow furrows, 
which, with the thorax, are thickly punctured. This beetle 
varies in length from three to four tenths of an inch. Oma- 
loplia sericea, the silky Omaloplia, closely resembles the pre- 
ceding in everything but its color, which is a very deep 
chestnut-brown, iridescent or changeable like satin, and re- 
flecting the colors of the rainbow. 
All these Melolonthians are nocturnal insects, never ap- 
pearing, except by accident, in the day, during which they 
remain under shelter of the foliage of trees and shrubs, or 
concealed in the grass. Others are truly day-fliers, commit- 
ting their ravages by the light of the sun, and are conse- 
quently exposed to observation. 
One of our diurnal Melolonthians is supposed by many nat- 
uralists to be the Anomala varians (Fig. 15) 
of Fabricius ; and it agrees very well with 
this writer’s description of the lucicola ; but 
Professor Germar thinks it to be an mule- 
scribed species, and proposes to name it cce- 
lebs. It resembles the vine-chafer of Europe 
in its habits, and is found in the months of 
June and July on the cultivated and wild 
grape-vines, the loaves of which it devours. During the same 
period, these chafers may be seen in still greater numbers on 
various kinds of sumach, which they often completely despoil 
of their leaves. They are of a broad oval shape, and very 
variable in color. The head and thorax of the male are 
greenish black, margined with dull ochre or tile-red, and 
thickly punctured ; the wing-covers are clay-yellow, irregu- 
larly furrowed, and punctured in the furrows ; the legs are 
pale red, brown, or black. The thorax of the female is clay- 
yellow, or tile-red, sometimes with two oblique blackish spots 
on the top, and sometimes almost entirely black ; the wing- 
covers resemble those of the male ; the legs arc clay-yellow, 
