INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE OAK. : PD 
inclined to believe that it is two years. M. Levaillant, whose observations are repro- 
duced by M. Lucas in his notice of Chalcophora, is also disposed to think that those 
of this insect pass two years in the wood. The reason which he gives, and which is 
drawn from the size of the larve found from December to August, does not seem to 
me conclusive, because the female of Chalecophora is capable of laying eggs during 
almost the entire year. As to M. Ratzeburg, he has not, apparently, made careful 
observations in this respect. 
As to myself, numerous facts authorize me to say that,in general, these larve only 
live one year. For example, some pines, poplars, and willows which I have cut down 
in the spring time with the design of obtaining Buprestids, have afforded me often 
very numerous perfect insects in May and June of the year following. 
Some logs of oak, eut in January, 1847, and which lay during a whole year in the 
open air, furnished me in June and July, 1848, more than three hundred Chrysobothris 
afinis. The trunks of some large, very rigorous pines, cut down at the beginning of 
one year, contained pupe of Ancylocheira in the following May. Finally, as regards 
all the species that I have here described, and for a number of others, I have, from 
my own experience, the certainty that the larve live only one year. 
I admit that, without doubt, among these larvae there are some which, not placed in 
conditions sufficiently favorable to complete during this period all the phases of their 
existence, and which, from one cause or another, may be retarded some months, for 
a year,even. I moreover accept the more willingly this fact, because I have had good 
occasions for observing this in larve which I have raised in my cabinet; but, this is 
the exception, and the rule is that a single year suffices, in our country, for the devel- 
opment of the larve of the Buprestidi. 
The Buprestids in the perfect state love the daylight and sunshine. Before storms, 
when the air is calm and heavy and the sun is hot, they have an extraordinary activity ; 
and when the weather gradually becomes cloudy and the wind rises they disappear 
from our sight. We know but little as to the nature of their food. Chalcophora ma - 
riana devours the young shoots of pines, Anthaxia morio and chevrierii eat, the first the 
petals of buttercups, the second those of Cissus alyssoides. Other Anthaxie, also, as 
well as Trachys, frequent different flowers. Aphanisticus emarginatus occurs on rushes 
(joucs), and I have sometimes taken Acmaodera teniata on the flowers of carrots: AJl 
these facts lead me to think that the Buprestids are phytophagous; but it appears 
that certain species are, accidentally at least, carniverous. This appears from a com- 
munication made by M. Léon Fairmaire to the Société Entomologique, in its session 
of January 10, 1849, relative to the subject of Chrysobothris solieri. 
Regarding our oak borer (C. dentipes), Harris states that it completes 
its transformations and comes out of the trees between the end of May 
and the first of July. This applies to Maine and Massachusetts. In 
New York, according to Dr. Fitch, the beetles are “often fouad bask- 
ing in the sunshine on the bark of the trees in June and July.” 
‘We have found the mines of a Buprestid borer under the bark of the 
hemlock, with exactly the arrangement in concentric ares of the castings 
described on p. 14. 
The beetle-—This insect is so named from the little tooth on the under side of the 
thick fore legs. It is oblong, oval, and flattened, of a bronzed brownish or purplish- 
black color above, copper-colored beneath, and roughlike shagreen, with numerous 
punctures; the thorax is not so wide as the hinder part of the body; its hinder mar- 
gin is hollowed on both sides to receive the rounded base of each wing-cover, and 
there are two smooth elevated lines on the middle; on each wing-cover there are 
three irregular, smooth, elevated lines, which are divided and interrupted by large 
thickly-punctured impressed spots, two of which are oblique; the tips are rounded. 
Length from 4 to ;'; of an inch. (Harris. ) 
