58 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



habited countries where many hundred miles are often 

 covered with impenetrable forests, where hurricanes, 

 tempests and earthquakes break down gigantic trees, 

 which if left alone would not decay for years, but 

 which are reduced to dust in a short time by wood- 

 eating insects, and a new and vigorous vegetation 

 springs up from the soil made fertile by that dust. 

 This phenomenon may be observed to a certain extent 

 even in our own woods 



One of these Beetles, which in company with its 

 offspring feeds on rotten wood, is 



The Horned Passalus. (Passalus cornutus.) 



Plate II. Fig. 7. 



This Beetle is about li inches long. It is black, 

 and has a slender body. Its antennas are rather more 

 denticulated than those of the Lamellicorn. Its head is 

 very short, but provided with a curved horn, two lines in 

 length. It has two very short, pincher-like jaws, a bright, 

 vaulted thorax, with an intermediate line, wing-covers 

 striated and very bright, and six short legs, covered 

 with brown hair. It lives in the trunks of decayed 

 trees, and is found in all parts of our country, from 

 New England to Mexico and the West India Islands. 

 Nearly allied to this Insect, and very much resembling 

 it in many respects, is 



