148 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



ENTOMOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS. 



BY R. VASHON ROGERS, JR., KINGSTON, ONT. 



CL YTUS. 



Among the Coleopterous hosts there is a family. called Long-horns, or 

 Capricorns, in vulgar parlance ; or Cerambycidae, when we are talking 

 learnedly. They derive these names from the fact that they possess very 

 long antennae (sometimes longer than their bodies), which are generally 

 re-curved like the horns of a wild goat (the Latin Caper). They form a 

 very large family ; already 4,000 of them are known and recognized by 

 the scientific world. They comprise some of the largest, most showy, as 

 well as most destructive, of the Beetles ; one of African origin — Prionus 

 Hayesii by name — is five inches long and one broad, with antennae of 

 seven inches and legs of four. The Long-horns are world-wide, and their 

 abundance is in proportion to the richness of vegetation of different 

 countries, so that South America, India, Ceylon and the Moluccas contain 

 a great number of the most beautiful and the largest Capricorns. 



They have earned the name of Borers because they are, in fact, 

 " animated gimlets," and spend their lives while in the larval state in 

 perforating and feeding upon trees ; some live and carry on their oper- 

 ations in the trunks, others in the branches ; some devour the wood, 

 others the pith ; some are found only in shrubs, some in the stems of 

 herbaceous plants, others confine their attentions to the roots. Some are 

 to be found only on one species of plants, others have a wider range. 

 Some bore straight holes, others branch off at divers angles, others make 

 tracks as various as those of an engraver, while some are regular screws. 

 The Germans, lovers of music, as they are, call these beetles " Fiddlers," 

 because they give forth, especially when annoyed or taken in the hand, a 

 squeaking or rasping noise produced by rubbing the joints of the thorax 

 and abdomen together. Some of the family are not only musical-boxes, 

 but scent-bottles as well, and emit a fragrant odor not unlike that of otto 

 of roses. 



The members of this family, as a rule, are very handsome, and readily 

 attract notice by their elegant forms and resplendent attire, that is, when 

 of full age ; when young — in the creeping age — they are ugly in the 

 extreme. Harris tells us that the various members of the family resemble 



