116 
tion appears in the alimentary canal; while, finally, if they are 
short and quadrate, blunt at the tips, and provided either with 
strong basal processes or broad opposed surfaces, vegetable food is 
found to predominate. Calosoma is an example of the first of these 
classes, Chleenius of the second, and Anisodactylus of the third. 
The seeming exceptions to this generalization are found among 
those genera of which too few specimens have been studied to war¬ 
rant general conclusions respecting their food. 
The Lady Bugs ( Coccinellidce ). 
This family shares with the preceding, the principal credit of 
limiting the increase of other insects, its fondness for plant-lice 
being well known. 
Dr. Le Baron says of it in his excellent fourth report: 
“The rounded or hemispherical form of these insects, commonly 
known by the name of lady-birds, and their dotted coloration, render 
them one of the most easily recognized of all the families of Cole- 
optera. Their three-jointed tarsi and the broad hatchet-shaped ter¬ 
minal joint of the maxillary palpi, are their most distinctive organic 
character's. The tarsal joints are always dilated and cushioned be¬ 
neath, and the second joint is deeply bilobed. 
These insects seem to be specially appropriated to keeping in check 
the extensive families of plant-lice, both the leaf-lice (Aphides), and 
the bark-lice ( Coccides ), upon which they feed voraciously, in both 
the imago and the larva states; and they are also known to devour 
the eggs of other insects. Mr. Westwood refers to some observa¬ 
tions which go to show that they must sometimes subsist on veget¬ 
able food, and I have seen the Coccinella 15-punctata, Oliv., with its 
head deenly immersed in a ripe raspberry, implying that they some¬ 
times feed upon the juices of ripe and succulent fruits; but such 
cases are rare and exceptional to their general habits. 
The larvae are oblong, blackish grubs, and are usually thickly 
beset with spines, which are also furnished with smaller spines or 
prickles, giving them, when magnified, a formidable appearance. 
These, as is the case with other larvae, are much more voracious 
than the perfect insects.” 
The collections from which the present notes are derived, are from 
a variety of miscellaneous situations, and also from a cornfield men¬ 
tioned in the notes on the food of the preceding family, in which 
chinch-bugs were superabundant, the purpose of the latter collection 
being to determine the food relations of the Coccinellidae to those 
insects. It so happened that the same field was infested by the corn 
Aphis in great numbers, and the specimens obtained therein conse¬ 
quently illustrate to some extent the food of the lady-bugs in the 
presence of plant-lice. It was in this last situation only that larvae 
were collected, and the facts here given consequently relate almost 
wholly to the adult beetles. 
