58 AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGY. 



in the office twenty-two years before, and was made of fir wood, 

 imported from the Baltic. That the insect existed in the wood 

 before the desk was made, was proved by the fact of the channel 

 formed by the insect having been then transversely cut. 



The word Buprestis, is derived from the Greek 0ii7rpn<r<rir, but to 

 what insect that ancient people applied the word, is not known 

 with certainty at the present day. The Romans, also, held the 

 same insect to be poisonous, and their civilians recommended the 

 punishment of the law to be inflicted upon those persons who 

 rashly administered, internally, those poisonous insects, the 

 pithy ocamjjas, (^Bomhyx 2>ithyocamp>a Fabr.,) and the Buprestis. 

 It is evident, however, that they had no reference to any indi- 

 vidual of this family, inasmuch as no one of the species is capa- 

 ble of inflicting a serious injury on any of the larger animals. 

 But as the ancient Buprestis was stated to be endowed with the 

 power of destroying even the ox, it is conjectured that the Greeks 

 thus designated a vesicating insect, such as a Mylahris, a Lyttuj 

 or, according to some authors, a Carabus, the two former of 

 which, when taken into the stomach, produce the most serious 

 effects on the animal economy, and even death itself, under the 

 most afflicting circumstances. 



Buprestis rufipes. — Specific character. Elytra, each with 

 four yellow spots, of which the basal one is longitudinal. 



Buprestis rufipes Oliv. Ins. vol. ii. No. 32, p. 16, pi. 7, fig. 

 73, a. b. Fabr. Syst. Eleut. pt. 2, p. 188, No. 13. Encyc. Meth. 

 No. 15. Herbst, Natur. pt. ix. p. 79, pi. 140, fig. 3. 



Desc. Body green, polished, slightly tinged with brassy : head 

 rough with deeply impressed confluent punctures ; an obsolete im- 

 pressed line on the vertex, becoming elevated on the front : antennae 

 rufous : thorax with small distinct profound punctures, and an 

 impressed spot before the scutel : elytra with narrow, deep striae 

 and, at tip, bidentated : an abbreviated fulvous vitta originates 

 near the humerus, and extends near to the middle ; a transverse, 

 abbreviated, undulated fulvous band, a little beyond the middle, 

 does not quite reach the suture ; intermediate between this band 

 and the tip of the elytra, is another undulated one, of the same 

 color ; at the tip, is also a narrow band : pectus greenish-violace- 

 ous ; a dilated vitta in the middle, and another each side, fulvous; 

 the latter on its anterior part passes a little above the edge of the 



