36 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



upon the sweet sap of these plants. Fortunate would it be 

 for us if they fed on these only; but their love of sweets leads 

 them to attack our finest peaches, which, as soon as ripe, they 

 begin to devour, and in a very few hours entirely spoil. I have 

 taken a dozen of them from a single peach, into which they 

 had burrowed so that nothing but the naked tips of their hind- 

 body could be seen ; and not a ripe peach remained unbitten 

 by them on the tree. When touched, they leave a strong and 

 disagreeable scent upon the fingers. On the approach of cold 

 weather they disappear, but I have not been able to ascertain 

 w^hat becomes of them at this time, and only conjecture that 

 they get into some warm and sheltered spot, where they pass 

 the winter in a torpid state, and in the spring issue from their 

 retreats, and finish their career by depositing their eggs for 

 another brood. Those that are seen in the spring want the 

 freshness of the autumnal beetles, a circumstance that favors 

 my conjecture. Their hovering over and occasionally dropping 

 upon the surface of the ground, is probably for the purpose of 

 selecting a suitable place to enter the earth and lay their eggs. 

 Hence I suppose that their larvae or grubs may live on the 

 roots of herbaceous plants. 



The other Cetonian beetle to be described is the Osmoderma 

 scaber* or rough Osmoderma. It is a large insect, with a 

 broad oval and flattened body ; the thorax is nearly round, but 

 wider than long; there are no wedge-shaped pieces between 

 the corners of the thorax, and the shoulders of the wing-cases, 

 and the outer edges of the latter are entire. It is of a purplish 

 black color, with a coppery lustre; the head is punctured, 

 concave or hollowed on the top, with the edge of the broad 

 visor turned up in the males, nearly flat, and with the edge of 

 the visor not raised in the females ; the wing-cases are so thickly 

 and deeply and irregularly punctured as to appear almost as 

 rough as shagreen ; the under side of the body is smooth and 

 without hairs ; and the legs are short and stout. In addition 

 to the differences between the sexes above described, it may be 

 mentioned that the females are generally much larger than the 



* Trichius scaber, Palisot de Bcauvois ; Gymnodiis scaber, Kirby. 



