COLEOPTERA. 89 



where their broad and winding tracks may bo traced by the 

 hardened sawdust with which they are crowded. Just before 

 they are about to be transformed, they bore into the solid 

 wood to the depth of several inches. They are said to be 

 very injurious to the sapling pines in Maine. Professor Peck 

 supposed this species of Callidium to have been introduced 

 into Europe in timber exported from this country, as it is 

 found in most parts of that continent that have been much 

 connected with North America by navigation. Thus Europe 

 and America seem to have interchanged the porter and violet 

 Callidium, which, by means of shipping, have now become 

 common to the two continents. 



From the regularity of its form, and the noble size it attains, 

 the sugar maple is accounted one of the most beautiful of our 

 forest-trees, and is esteemed as one of the most valuable, on 

 account of its many useful properties. This fine tree suffers 

 much from the attacks of borers, which in some cases produce 

 its entire destruction. We are indebted to the Rev. L. W. 

 Leonard, of Dublin, N. H., for the first account of the habits 

 and transformations of these borers. In the summer of 1828, 

 his attention was called to some young maples, in Keene, 

 which were in a languishing condition. He discovered the 

 insect in its beetle state under the loosened bark of one of the 

 trees, and traced the recent track of the larva three inches into 

 the solid wood. In the course of a few years, these trees, 

 upon the cultivation of which much care had been bestowed, 

 were nearly destroyed by the borers. The failure, from the 

 same cause, of several other attempts to raise the sugar maple, 

 has since come to my knowledge. The insects are changed 

 to beetles, and come out of the trunks of the trees in July. In 

 the vicinity of Boston, specimens have been repeatedly taken, 

 which were undoubtedly brought here in maple logs from 

 Maine. The beetle was first described in 1824, in the Appen- 

 dix to Keating's " Narrative of Long's Expedition," by Mr. 

 Say, who called it Clytiis speciosus ; that is, the beautiful 

 Clytus. It was afterwards inserted, and accurately repre- 

 sented by the pencil of Lesueur, in Say's " American Entomo- 

 logy," and, more recently, a description and figure of it has 

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