684 FIFTH REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



14. JBuprestis ruaticorum Kirby, 



This is an abundant insect in the pine woods of Oregon and Wash- 

 ington, and appears to range eastward into British America. We 

 have found it in pine woods at Manitou, Colo., July 16, while it is not 

 uncommon in New England, Mr. George Hunt finding it at Providence, 

 R. I. The body is brown, with an olive-green tint. Head and thorax 

 punctured. Each wing-cover with five ridges, four of them well 

 marked and smooth, the interspaces with scattered punctures. On the 

 head between the eyes are five yellow spots ; two simple 

 dots, two long spots on the orbits, sending two projections 

 outward, and a line in front sends three projections up- 

 wards. Two unequal yellow spots under the eyes. Lab- 

 rum and labium yellow. Fine orange- yellow spots on each 

 side of the end of the abdomen beneath. Length, 0.65 

 to 0.92 inch. Le Conte also adds that this species is 

 Fig. 22i.—Bup- nearly allied to Buprestis maculiventriSy which occurs in 

 restis rustico- ^]^q northcast from Pennsylvania to Newfoundland. 

 Packard. Regarding this beetle, Mr. W. H. Harrington remarks 



in the Transactions of the Ottawa Field Naturalist's Club, 

 No. 2, p. 30 : 



The last of the Buprestians which I have to describe is, in my opinion, the gem of 

 them all, so brilliant is it, especially in the sunlight. It is also the smallest, the 

 males only averaging four-sixteenths of an inch in length, and the females five six- 

 teenths. The larvtB inhabit young saplings and the small limbs of larger trees. The 

 beetles are found on the trees during June and July, seeming to delight in the hottest 

 and brightest days of these months, and displaying in such weather great activity 

 whereas on a cool, cloudy day they are much less alert. When among the leaves 

 they are, from their color, very difficult to see, and if shaken off upon a beating-net 

 they take wing with such swiftness as very frequently to escape capture. The 

 instant they drop upon the net they are off like a flash of emerald light. The color 

 of the female is a uniform vivid green or blue-green, with the exception of the 

 antennsE and feet, which are black, but the male has the thighs and sides of the 

 thorax coppery or bronzed, and is thus easily distiguished, as well as by his smaller 

 size. 



15. Yellow-dotted Bupkestis. 



Melanophila fulvoguttata ( Harris). 



Appearing upon pines in June, a more flattened beetle chan the foregoing, 0.30 

 to 0.43 long, of a brassy black color with three pale yellow dots on each wing- cover 

 placed towards the hind part and equidistant from each other, the hindmost ones 

 nearest the suture and the middle ones farthest from it; the fore ends of the wing- 

 covers moderately rounded and fitting into corresponding concavities in the base of 

 the thorax; the whole surface covered with shallow rough punctures running 

 together transversely and somewhat resembling the grained side of morocco leather, 

 and the thorax having an indentation on the middle of its base like the impression 

 of the head of a pin. (Harris's Treatise, p. 44.) 



