LARVA OF THE CALOSOMA, 37 



manner of his kind, with sugar and a lantern, the trunks of 

 the trees appear to be quite studded with gems, which are the 

 shining green bodies of the Calosoma. 



The name Calosoma is formed from two Greek words, signi- 

 fying beautiful body, and is more appropriate than the gene- 

 rality of insect names. The head and thorax are very deep 

 violet, almost amounting to black, the violet being most brilliant 

 on the margins of the thorax, which are flattened and slightly 

 turned up like the brim of a hat. The whole surface of the 

 thorax is finely granulated, and there is a faint but distinct 

 groove along its centre. The elytra are singularly beautiful. 

 They are gold-green 'shot' with blue, the hues shifting, like 

 those of a pigeon's neck, with every change of light. They are 

 deeply and regularly striated, and on each elytron there are 

 three rows of rather deep punctures, placed at some distance 

 ftpaH. Counting from the suture, the punctures are placed on 

 the fourth, eighth, and twelfth striae. Although they are well 

 marked, they cannot be properly seen without a magnifying 

 glass, though when viewed with a side-light they look like 

 three rows of tiny glittering points. Beneath, the insect is black, 

 glossed with bronze. Its length is rather more than an inch. 



It is impossible to calculate the benefit which this beautiful 

 ins'^ct confers upon the countries in which it lives, and it is not 

 too much to say that but for the Calosoma the fir-tree would 

 be extinct in many of those places from which we derive our 

 chief stores of timber. Both in the perfect and larval condi- 

 tions it is carnivorous, feeding upon certain destructive cater- 

 pillars belonging to the Bombycidse, among which those of the 

 Processionary Moth {Cnethocampa processionea) and the Gripsy 

 Moth {Liparis dispar) are the most conspicuous. It does not, 

 however, feed only on the caterpillars of moths, but also devours 

 the larvae of the Pine Saw Fly [Lophyrus pini), thus selecting, 

 with a curious instinct, the very creatures which do most harm 

 to the forest. In the plate the insect is represented as looking 

 down from the branch to whick 't has climbed in search of the 

 Brown-tail Moth's nest. 



Although it eats many of these larvae after it has attained 

 the perfect form, it commits the greatest ravages while itself 

 in the larval condition. In this state it is ugly as it is beautiful 

 when it becomes a Beetle. It is a black, soft-bodied grul\ 



