48 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



their appearance upon trees and fences, and some are found on 

 flowers. They creep slowly, and generally fall to the ground on 

 being touched. They fly both by day and night. Their food, in 

 the beetle states, appears to be chiefly derived from flowers ; but 

 some devour the tender leaves of plants. Most of the insects of 

 this family were included in the genus Elater, which has recently 

 been subdivided into many smaller groups. These, in the few 

 species which I propose to describe, will be indicated by having 

 their names enclosed within parentheses. 



The largest of our spring-beetles is the Elater (dlaus) ocula- 

 tus, of Linnaeus. It is of a black color ; the thorax is oblong 

 square, and nearly one third the length of the whole body, cov- 

 ered above with a whitish powder, and with a large oval velvet- 

 black spot, like an eye, on each side of the middle, from which 

 the insect derives its name oculatus, or eyed ; the wing-covers are 

 marked with slender longitudinal impressed lines, and are sprinkled 

 with numerous white dots ; the under-side of the body, and the 

 legs, are covered with a white mealy powder. This large beetle 

 measures from one inch and a quarter to one inch and three quar- 

 ters in length. It is found on trees, fences, and the sides of 

 buildings, in June and July. It undergoes its transformations in 

 the trunks of trees. I have found many of them in old apple- 

 trees, together with their larva?, which eat the wood, and from 

 which I subsequently obtained the insects in the beetle state. 

 These larva? are reddish yellow grubs, proportionally much 

 broader than the other kinds, and very much flattened. One of 

 them, which was found fully grown early in April, measured two 

 inches and a half in length, and nearly four tenths of an inch 

 across the middle of the body, and was not much narrowed at 

 either extremity. The head was broad, brownish, and rough 

 above ; the upper jaws or nippers were very strong, curved, and 

 pointed ; the eyes were small and two in number, one being 

 placed at the base of each of the short antenna? ; the last segment 

 of the body was blackish, rough with little sharp-pointed warts, 

 with a deep semicircular notch at the end, and furnished around 

 the sides with little teeth, the two hindmost of which were long, 

 forked, and curved upwards like hooks ; under this segment was 

 a large retractile fleshy prop-foot, armed behind with little claws, 



