ORDER I. BEETLES. 55 



The Painted Capricorn {^Clytus pictus). — This beautiful 

 insect is one of our autumnal visitors, 

 and one of the countless host of evi- 

 dences that the rolling year is full, only 

 as every season brings its own peculiar 

 charms. Spring is the time of youth, 

 of buds, and of flowers; autumn the 

 harvest of maturity, of blossoms, and 

 of fruit. If the merry month of May ^-. 

 adorns our woods and meadows w4th 



. . Painted Capricorn. 



their youthful vegetation, their chirping 

 birds and delicate flowers, so is the beginning of autumn 

 none the less lavish in its golden harvest of grain, its melo- 

 dious songsters, and its crown of brilliant flowers. There, 

 from the red-leaved bushes, the tall Rudbeckia peeps out 

 its golden head ; here, the blue Vernonias and Liatris min- 

 gle with the yellow Helianthus and Coreopsis, forming showy 

 figures upon the green velvet carpet of the field ; while the 

 purple and white Eupatoriums, blending with the rosy Spi- 

 reas and crimson Cardinal flowers, and all bordered by the 

 variegated Asters and perfumed Golden-rod, form one magic 

 sheet of kaleidoscopic images ! 



It is upon the slender Golden-rod, feasting upon the pol- 

 len of its flowers and upon its aromatic leaves, that we see 

 the handsome little Painted Capricorn Beetle. This insect 

 is little more than half an inch long, and of a cylindrical 

 form. Its whole body is black, and looks like velvet. Its 

 head and thorax are crossed with yellow lines, and its wing- 

 covers are marked with lines, triangles, and spots of the 

 same color. Its antennce are half as long as its body, and 

 its legs of a reddish brown color. 



Although this Beetle is seen in the month of September 

 feeding upon the flower-dust of the Golden-rod, its children 

 have a different taste. Hence the female deposits her eggs 

 in the crevices of the bark of locust-trees, and the grubs 



