THE ELATER. 129 



intended captor, folds its limbs and antemiro closely to its body, 

 and falls to the ground, where search is almost useless, its 

 small green body harmonising so well with the colour of the 

 herbage. 



At Fig. / on the same woodcut the larva of this insect is 

 shown, rather magnified, though not so much as the Beetle 

 itself. In its larval stage of existence the insect lives in dead 

 or decaying trees, usually just under the bark. The present 

 species jDrefers the oak, and burrows under the bark of the 

 old oak-stumps that are left by the woodcutters after they have 

 felled the trees. When tiie larvae are full-fed they make their 

 cells between the bark and the tree itself, and, like many other 

 brightly-coloured Beetles, remain in the pupal cell for some 

 time after they have thro'svn off the pupal envelope, so that the 

 integuments of the body may gain their full hardness before 

 the insect moves into the open air. 



Passing by the family of the Eucnemidce, which, like that of 

 the Buprestidss, has the prothorax fitting so closely against 

 the base of the elytra that the insect cannot leap, we come tc) 

 the typical genus, of which our example is Elater sanguineus, 

 drawn on Woodcut XIII. Fig. 5. In this family the antennEs are 

 long, and inserted just in front of the eyes, which are large and 

 round. The two hinder angles of the thorax are produced into 

 spines pointing backwards, and the mucro is able to move freely 

 in the cavity into which it fits, in consequence of the distance 

 between the base of the elytra and the thorax. In this genus 

 the tarsi are bristly, the joints becoming gradually smaller, the 

 body is flattened, and the sides of the thorax are not widened. 

 The name Elater is Greek, and signifies a 'striker' or 'hmier,' the 

 name being given to the insect in consequence of its power of 

 hurling itself into the air. 



The ground colour of the present species is black, but it is 

 covered with brown-black or red-brown down, the thorax being 

 rather convex, punctured, and having a short and shallow 

 furrow behind. The elytra are of a more decided hue, being 

 blood-red (whence the specific name, sanguineus^, and are 

 striated and punctured. It is not a very common insect, but 

 may be found in woods. I have taken it in a copse on tl"e 

 Wiltshire downs. 



K 



