Fig. 72.—A family of forest tent-caterpillars (Clisiocampa disstria), resting during the day on the bark, about one-third natural size. (Photograph from life by M. V. Slingerland.)

The Coleoptera is the largest insect order, probably 100,000 species of beetles being known, of which 10,000 species are found in North America. They pass through a complete metamorphosis (figs. [75] and [76]), the larvæ of the various kinds showing much variety in form and habit. The pupæ are quiescent and are mummy-like in appearance, the legs and wings being folded and pressed to the ventral surface of the body. Among the familiar beetles are the lady-birds, which are beneficial insects feeding on plant-lice and other noxious forms; the beautifully colored tiger-beetles, predaceous in habit; the "tumblebugs" and carrion beetles, which feed on decaying organic matter; the luminous fire-flies with their phosphorescent organs on the ventral part of the abdomen; the striped Colorado potato-beetle and the cucumber-beetles and numerous other destructive leaf-eating kinds; the various weevils (fig. [78]) that bore into fruits, nuts and grains, and the many wood-boring beetles, destructive to fruit-trees as well as to shade- and forest-trees.

Fig. 73.—Moths of the peach-tree borer, Sanninoidea exitiosa, natural size; the upper one and the one at the right are females. (Photograph by M. V. Slingerland.)

The predaceous water-beetles (Dyticus sp.) are common in ponds and quiet pools in streams. When at rest they hang head downward with the tip of the abdomen just projecting from the water. Air is taken under the tips of the folded wing-covers (elytra) and accumulates so that it can be breathed while the beetle swims and feeds under water. When the air becomes impure the beetle rises to the surface, forces it out, and accumulates a fresh supply. The beetles are very voracious, feeding on other insects, and even on small fish. The eggs are laid promiscuously in the water, and the elongate spindle-form larvæ (fig. [77]) called water-tigers are also predaceous. They suck the blood from other insects through their sharp-pointed sickle-shaped hollow mandibles. When a larva is fully grown it leaves the water, burrows in the ground, and makes a round cell within which it undergoes its transformations. The pupa state lasts about three weeks in summer, but the larvæ that transform in autumn remain in the pupa state all winter.

Fig. 74.—Army-worms, larvæ of the moth, Leucania unipuncta, on corn. (Photograph by M. V. Slingerland.)