COLEOPTERA. 37 



males, and often want tlie coppery polish of the latter. They 

 measure from eight tenths of an inch to one inch and one tenth 

 in length. They are nocturnal insects, and conceal tlieinselves 

 during the day in the crevices and hollows of trees, where they 

 feed upon the sap that flows from the bark. They have the 

 odor of Russia leather, and give this out so powerfully, that 

 their presence can be detected, by the scent alone, at the dis- 

 tance of t^vo or three yards from the place of their retreat. 

 This strong smell suggested the name Osinodcnna, that is 

 scented skin, given to these beetles by the French naturalists. 

 They seem particularly fond of the juices of cherry and apple 

 trees, in the hollows of which I have often discovered them. 

 Their larvae live in the hollows of these same trees, feeding 

 upon the diseased wood, and causing it more rapidly to decay. 

 They are whitish fleshy grubs, with a reddish hard-shelled 

 head, and closely resemble the gi*ubs of the common dor-beetle. 

 In the autumn each one makes an oval cell or pod, of fragments 

 of wood, strongly cemented with a kind of glue ; it goes through 

 its transformation within this cell, and comes forth in the beetle 

 form in the month of July. 



We have another scented beetle, equal in size to the pre- 

 ceding, of a deep mahogany-brown color, perfectly smooth, 

 and highly polished, and the male has a deep pit before the 

 middle of the thorax. This species of Osmoderma is called 

 eremicola* a name that cannot be rendered literally into English 

 by any single word; it signifies wilderness-inhabitant, for which 

 might be substituted hermit. I believe that this insect lives in 

 forest-trees, but the larva is unknown to me. 



The family Lucanid.e, or Lucanians, so named from the 

 Linnaean genus Lucanus, must be placed next to the Scara- 

 baeians in a natural arrangement. This family includes the 

 insects called stag-beetles, horn-bugs, and flying-bulls, names 

 that they have obtained from the great size and peculiar form 

 of their upper jaw^s, which are sometimes curved like the horns 

 of cattle, and sometimes branched like the antlers of a stag. 

 In these beetles the body is hard, oblong, rounded behind, and 



* Cetonia eremicola of Knoch. 



