118 LOMG HORNED BEETLES. 



slender body, black, with head and thorax coarsely punctured ; 

 each of the short wing-covers has a yellowish dash almost par- 

 allel with the inner margin ; the feelers and legs are brownish. 



The larva of 'this beetle has been found in hickory twigs and 

 branches ; also in those of the maple. The beetles themselves 

 are very active, and fly about flowering shrubs during the warm 

 and sunny days of June and July. 



We have a large number of very prettily marked longi- 

 corn beetles w'hich fly about during the day as actively as wasps, 

 visiting flowers for the sake of their pollen and honey, and 

 which race up and down the trees in which they were born or in 

 which they intend to lay their eggs. Those interested in flowers, 

 and especially in golden-rods, must have seen such beetles, us- 

 ually of a dark brown or almost black color, marked with wavy 

 golden-yellow lines across their wing-covers. A species not 

 uncommonly found upon golden-rods in our prairies, away from 

 any forests, is shown in Fig. 121^2. It is Cyllene decorus Oliv. 

 Some similar beetles are very destructive in their earlier stages, 

 and on this account it is, or was, even forbidden to plant such 

 trees as the locust. Maples, ash, hickories, walnut, butternut, 

 and other trees suffer equally, and therefor two of the insedts 

 will be described and illustrated. 



THE I'AIiNTED HICKORY-BORER. 



{Cyllene pictus Drury). 



This and the Locust-eorer (C. rohiniac Forst.), are very 

 similar in size, color and markings. The illustrations (Figs. 122 

 and 123) on Plate IV are excellent ones and were kindly loaned 

 by Prof. Webster, the entomologist of Ohio. 



The former, {pictus), appears as a beetle only in spring; the 

 latter, {robinise), only towards fall, when large numbers of them 

 may be collected upon the flowers of the beautiful golden-rod. 

 The "painted hickory-borer" is a velvety black beetle, with nu- 

 merous narrow, pale-yellow transverse bands upon the elytra 

 and across the thorax. With a little imagination one of these 



