26 COLEOPTERA. 



or dull brownish-yellow, with three distinct black dots on 

 each ; the thorax is darker and slightly bronzed, with a black 

 dot on each side ; the body beneath, and the legs, are of a 

 deep bronzed green color. These beetles fly by day ; but 

 may also be seen at the same time on the leaves of the grape, 

 which are their only food. They sometimes prove very inju- 

 rious to the vine. The only method of destroying them is 

 to pick them off by hand and crush them under foot. The 

 larvaB live in rotten wood, such as the stumps and roots of 

 dead trees ; and do not differ essentially from those of other 

 Scarabasians. 



Among the tree-beetles, those commonly called dors, chaf- 

 ers, May-bugs, and rose-bugs, are the most interesting to the 

 farmer and gardener, on account of their extensive ravages, 

 both in the winged and larva states. They were included by 

 Fabricius in the genus Melolontha, a word used by the ancient 

 Greeks to distinguish the same kind of insects, which were 

 supposed by them to be produced from or with the flowers 

 of apple-trees, as the name itself implies. These beetles, 

 together with many others, for which no common names exist 

 in our language, are now united in one family called MELO- 

 LONTHAD^E, or Melolonthians. The following are the general 

 characters of these insects. The body is oblong oval, con- 

 vex, and generally of a brownish color ; the antennas are nine 

 or more commonly ten jointed, the knob is much longer in 

 the males than in the females, and consists generally of three 

 leaf-like pieces, sometimes of a greater number, which open 

 and shut like the leaves of a book ; the visor is short and 

 wide ; the upper jaws are furnished at the base on the inner 

 side with an oval space, crossed by ridges, like a millstone, 

 for grinding ; the thorax is transversely square, or nearly so ; 

 the wing-cases do not cover the whole of the body, the hinder 

 extremity of which is exposed ; the legs are rather long, the 

 first pair armed externally with two or three teeth ; and the 

 claws are notched beneath, or are split at the end like the 

 nib of a pen. The powerful and horny jaws are admirably 



