338 1NSECTA. 



Buprestis, Lin. 



The generic appellation of Richard, given to these Coleoptera by 

 Geoffroy, intimates the richness of their livery. Several of the 

 European species, and many that are foreign to that country, be- 

 sides their size, are remarkable for a brilliant polished gold colour 

 on an emerald ground; in others, an azure blue glistens over the 

 gold, or there is a union of several other metallic colours. Their 

 body, in general, is oval, somewhat wider and obtuse, or truncated 

 before, and narrowed behind from the base of the abdomen, which 

 occupies the greater part of its length. The eyes are oval, and the 

 thorax is short and wide. The scutel small or null. The extrem- 

 ity of the elytra is more or less dentated in many. The legs are 

 short. 



They walk very slowly, but fly well in hot and dry weather. When 

 about to be seized, they let themselves fall to the ground. At the 

 posterior extremity of the abdomen of the females is a coriaceous, 

 laminiform, conical appendage, composed of three parts, the last 

 annuli of the abdomen; it is properly an instrument with which they 

 deposit their ova in dry wood, the habitat of their larvae. Several 

 small species are met with on leaves and flowers; most of the others, 

 however, are found in forests, and wood-yards: they sometimes ap- 

 pear in houses, where they have been transported, in wood, in the 

 state of a larva or chrysalis. 



Sometimes the antennae are at most dentated like a saw. The 

 intermediate joints of the tarsi are in the form of a reversed heart, 

 and the penultimate, at least, is bifid. The palpi are filiform or very 

 little thicker at the end. The jaws are bilobate. 



Buprestis, Lin. 



In the true Buprestis, the antennae are of equal thickness through- 

 out and serrated from the third or fourth joint. 

 Some have no scutel. 



B. fasciculata, L.; Oliv., Col. II, 32, IV, 38. About an inch 

 long; ovoid, convex; densely punctured and wrinkled; of a 

 golden or cupreous-green, sometimes dusky, with little tufts of 

 yellowish or reddish hairs; elytra entire. From the Cape of 

 Good Hope, where it is often found in such abundance on the 

 same shrub, that the plant seems loaded with flowers. 



B. sternicornis, L.; Oliv., Col., lb., VI, 52, a. Somewhat 

 larger, and of the same form; green, slightly gilded, and very 

 brilliant; large punctures, ornamented at bottom with whitish 

 scales on the elytra; three teeth at their extremity; poststernum 

 projecting in the form of a horn. The East Indies. 



