COLEOPTERA. 85 



transverse yellow spots on each side ; the wing-covers, for about 

 two-thirds of their length, are black, the remaining third is yellow, 

 and they are ornamented with bands and spots arranged in the 

 following manner ; a yellow spot on each shoulder, a broad yel- 

 low curved band or arch, of which the yellow scutel forms the 

 key-stone, on the base of the wing-covers, behind this a zigzag 

 yellow band forming the letter W, across the middle another yel- 

 low band arching backwards, and on the yellow tip a curved band 

 and a spot of a black color ; the legs are yellow ; and the under- 

 side of the body is reddish yellow, variegated with brown. It is 

 the largest known species of Clytus, being from nine to eleven 

 tenths of an inch in length, and three or four tenths in breadth. It 

 lays its eggs on the trunk of the maple in July and August. The 

 grubs burrow into the bark as soon as they are hatched, and are 

 thus protected during the winter. In the spring they penetrate 

 deeper, and form, in the course of the summer, long and winding 

 galleries in the wood, up and down the trunk. In order to check 

 their devastations, they should be sought for in the spring, when 

 they will readily be detected by the saw-dust that they cast out of 

 their burrows ; and, by a judicious use of a knife and stiff wire, 

 they may be cut out or destroyed before they have gone deeply 

 into the wood. 



Many kinds of Clytus frequent flowers, for the sake of the pol- 

 len, which they devour. During the month of September, the 

 painted Clytus, Clytus pictus,* is often seen in abundance, feed- 

 ing by day upon the blossoms of the golden-rod. If the trunks 

 of our common locust-tree, Rabinia pseiulacacia, are examined at 

 this time, a still greater number of these beetles will be found 

 upon them, and most often paired. The habits of this insect 

 seem to have been known, as long ago as the year 1771, to Dr. 

 John Reinhold Forster, who then described it under the name of 

 Leptura Robinice, the latter being derived from the tree which it 

 inhabits. Drury, however, had previously described and figured 

 it, under the specific name here adopted, which, having the prior- 

 ity, in point of time, over all the others that have been subse- 

 quently imposed, must be retained. This Capricorn-beetle has 



* Leptura picta, Drury ; Clytus fiexuosus , Fabricius. 



