POLYMORPHA BUPRESTIDAE 



26l 



nor Cebrionides are represented in our fauna ; the former of these 

 two groups consists only of four or five North American species, 

 and the Cerophytides are scarcely more numerous. 



Fam. 61. Buprestidae. Antennae serrate, never elongate ; 

 prothorax fitting closely to the after-body, with a process received 

 into a cavity of the mesosternum so as to permit of no movements 

 of nutation. Five visible ventral segments, the first usually 

 elongate, closely 'united with, t/ic second, the others mobile. Tarsi 

 five-jointed, the first four joints usually with membranous pads 

 beneath. This family is also of large extent, about 5000 species 

 being known. Many of them are remarkable for the magnificence 

 of their colour, which is usually metallic, and often of the greatest 

 brilliancy ; hence their wing-cases are 

 used by our own species for adorn- 

 ment. The elytra of the eastern kinds 

 of the genus Sternocera are of a very 

 brilliant green colour, and are used 

 extensively as embroidery for the 

 dresses of ladies ; the bronze elytra 

 of Buprestis (Euchroma) gigantea 

 were used by the native chieftains in 

 South America as leg -ornaments, a 

 large number being strung so as to 

 form a circlet. The integument of 

 the Buprestidae is very thick and hard, 

 so as to increase the resemblance to 

 metal. The dorsal plates of the abdo- 

 men are usually soft and colourless in 

 beetles, but in Buprestidae they are 

 often extremely brilliant. The metallic colour in these Insects is 

 not due to pigment, but to the nature of the surface. Buprestidae 

 appear to enjoy the hottest sunshine, and are found only where there 

 is much summer heat. Australia and Madagascar are very rich 

 in species and in remarkable forms of the family, while in Britain 

 we possess only ten species, all of which are of small size, and 

 nearly all are excessively rare. The family is remarkably rich in 

 fossil forms; no less than 28 percent of the Mesozoic beetles 

 found by Heer in Switzerland are referred to Buprestidae. 



The larvae (Fig. 136, A) find nourishment in living vegetable 

 matter, the rule being that they form galleries in or under the 



FIG. 136. A, Larva of Euchroma 

 (joliath (after Schiodte) ; B, imago 

 of MdanopMla decostiyma. 

 Europe. 



