cius, full of strength and vigour. The desk had 

 been fixed in the office twenty-two years before, 

 and was made of fir wood, imported from the 

 Baltic. That the insect existed in the wood be- 

 fore the desk was made, was proved by the fact 

 of the channel formed by the insect, having been 

 then transversely cut. 



The word Buprestis, is derived from the 

 Greek b»^/>»j5-;5; but to what insect that ancient 

 people applied the word, is not known with 

 certainty at the present day. The Romans, 

 also, held the same insect to be poisonous, and 

 their civilians recommended the punishment 

 of the law to be inflicted upon those persons 

 who rashly administer, internally, those poison- 

 ous insects, the pithyocampas^ (Bombyx pithy- 

 ocampa, Fabr.,) and the Buprestis. It is 

 evident, however, that they had no reference to 

 any individual of this family, inasmuch as no one 

 of the species is capable of inflicting a serious 

 injury on any of the larger animals. But as the 

 ancient Buprestis was stated to be endowed 

 with the power of destroying even the ox, it is 

 conjectured that the Greeks thus designated a 

 vesicating insect, such as a Mylabris, a Lytta, 

 or, according to some authors, a Carabus, the two 

 former of which, when taken into the stomach, 



PLATE xxvi. 



