14 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO FOREST AND SHADE TREES. 
our C. dentipes of the oak, and C. femorata of the oak and different fruit 
trees, and C. harristvi of the white pine are probably quite similar. 
According to my observations the Chrysobothris only lays its eggs onthe trunks of 
pines from five to fifteen centimeters in diameter at the base, and on the branches of 
old trees. I have never found it on an old trunk, and when a large prostrate pine is 
deprived of its branches it is on them that it lives, and not on the trunk. I have 
already said that the larva lives at first under the bark; it there busies itself, some- 
times attacking very plainly the sap-wood, sometimes boring a sinuous gallery, which 
it leaves behind it filled with white chips and excrements of a brownish red; but at 
the approach of winter it burrows into the wood, where it gouges out a gallery ellip- 
tical in section, the dimensions of which increase as its body grows larger. When 
the moment of transformation has arrived it returns into its gallery, and undergoes 
its metamorphosis sometimes more than two centimeters from the surface, because I 
have found some pup and perfect insects at this depth. 
Perris calls attention to the fact that though the Buprestid beetles 
stand quite high in the Coleopterous series, yet their larve have an 
organization inferior to that of all other Coleopterous larve known. 
Thus, they have neither feet nor eyes, and there are no other Coleopte- 
rous lary which, as in the Buprestids, have very rudimentary labial 
palpi, and which consist of less than two joints. 
The burrows of the Buprestid larve may nearly always be distin- 
guished, says Perris, by their tortuous course, and by the fact that the 
excrement and detritus, instead of being accumulated in the gallery 
without order, are there disposed in small layers forming concentric ares, 
whose opening is turned away from the larva, and of a regularity not 
less remarkable than characteristic. 
This symmetrical arrangement has as its primary cause the dimensions of the gal- 
lery, which are out of proportion with the abdomen of the larva. The latter, because 
of the size of the anterior portion of its body, is obliged to give to its gallery a size 
sufficient for the posterior part to execute freely movements of advance and retreat, 
which have as their natural result the disposition en arc of the rejected material be- 
hind. On the other hand, the larva, in consequence of the dimensions of its gallery, 
in order to have points of support is obliged to bend the posterior part of the body 
on itself. It is, indeed, ordinarily found in this attitude, which allows it to press 
against the walls, so as to push itself ahead ; but in this condition the abdomen forms 
an are which, propping itself from the convex side on the detritus, causes the conecay- 
ity of the successive beds. * * * 
We have seen that some Buprestid larvee undergo their metamorphoses in the inte- 
rior of the bark, others in the thickness of the wood. It is, moreover, in this that the 
wisdom of nature is revealed, for it is not capriciously and without motive that things 
happen as I have described. We know, indeed, that if those larvee which do not at- 
tack the young trees, as those of Ancylocheira 8-guttata, of Chysobothris soliert, and of 
Anthaxia morio and of several species of Agrilus, should live under the bark they 
would not be sufficiently protected, because the bark is not thick enough and would 
easily separate from the wood. When, however, on the contrary, they live under the 
hard and thick bark of old trees, as Melanophila tarda, Chrysobothris affinis, Agrilus 
biguttatus, and 4-guttatus, and others, they do not hesitate to take refuge in the bark, 
because they are there well sheltered, and because they save the beetle from making 
a long and difficult journey in order to make its exit. * * * 
What is the duration of the life of the larvee of the Buprestide? Ratzeburg is 
