41 
and clothed with fine, short, incumbent grayish hairs. The 
wing-covers are striated by deep oblong punctures, the inter¬ 
vening spaces flat and minutely punctured. The mouth parts 
are on the anterior portion of the head, and the front is slightly 
flattened but distinctly margined back of the labrum. The an¬ 
tennae are reddish brown and serrate. A smooth, shallow, im¬ 
pressed line extends along the mesal portion of the thorax. 
Hie tarsi are not lobecl beneath and the claws are pectina*te.”— 
Comstock & Slingerland. 
Melanotus fissilis, Say. 
(Plate VI.. Fig. 2.) 
This species is, according to LeConte, abundant throughout 
the Middle and Southern States, and it also extends north¬ 
ward into Canada. The larvae and beetles are associated with 
those of M. comm unis throughout Illinois, but in the southern 
part of the State this is the more abundant of the two. 
The larva has not been separated by us from that of M. com¬ 
munis, and the two are quite possibly indistinguishable. 
The beetle is from 12 mm. to Id mm. in length, a dark red¬ 
dish brown in color, with the body closely punctured and cov¬ 
ered with fine, short, pale yellowish or grayish hairs. The 
wing-covers are striated with deep punctures and the flat inter¬ 
vening spaces are minutely punctured. The thorax m fissilis is 
without the smooth median longitudinal impressed line found in 
communis . otherwise it is difficult to distinguish these species. 
■Z'/’/e History. The life history of this species is probablv par¬ 
allel with that of M. communis , pupae being found by us July 
and August 12, 1889, as in that species. A pupa in- 
i oon ^ accidentally, in blue-grass sod, into a cutworm cage in 
1889, probably had its cell broken in moving the sod. and 
August 20 it was found lying on the surface. August 22 the 
beetle cast off the pupa skin and appeared to be none the worse 
lor its strange experience. Larvae that had already formed cells 
May 26, 1890, in the breeding cage, about six inches below the 
sur face, had pupated July 26. From a stock-cag’e of wireworms 
collected at various times for experimental use during the spring 
of 1889, we obtained September 21 several specimens of this 
species, with hardened crusts and fully developed color, as if 
their final transformations had been completed some little time 
before They were still in their pupal cells, where they would 
probably have passed the winter if they had not been disturbed. 
Our collections of imagos have been made at substantially 
the same times as those of communis. In November, December 
and February, numbers of adults were found in crevices of old 
logs, sometimes as many as a dozen to thirty or more within 
a few square inches. 
