THE BANDED STENOCORUS. 97 



slender and tapering, sometimes of moderate length, some- 

 times excessively long, especially in the males ; the thorax 

 is longer and more convex than in the preceding family, not 

 thin-edged, but often rounded at the sides. 



Some of these beetles, distinguished by their narrow wing- 

 covers, which are notched or armed with two little thorns at 

 the tip, and by the great length of their antennae, belong to 

 the genus Stenocorus, a name signifying narrow or straitened. 

 One of them, which is Fig. 46. 



rare here, inhabits the 

 hickory, in its larva state 

 forming long galleries in 

 the trunk of this tree in 

 the direction of the fibres 

 of the wood. This beetle 

 is the Stenocorus (Ceras- 

 phorus) cinctus,* or band- 

 ed Stenocorus (Fig 46). 

 It is of a hazel color, with 

 a tint of gray, arising from 

 the short hairs with which 

 it is covered ; there is an 

 oblique ochre-yellow band 

 across each wing-cover ; and a short spine or thorn on the 

 middle of each side of the thorax. The antenna of the 

 males are more than twice the length of the body, which 

 measures from three quarters of an inch to one inch and one 

 quarter in length. 



The ground beneath black 'and white oaks is often ob- 

 served to be strewn with small branches, neatly severed from 

 these trees as if cut off with a saw. Upon splitting open the 

 cut end of a branch, in the autumn or winter after it has 

 fallen, it will be found to be perforated to the extent of six 

 or eight inches in the course of the pith, and a slender grub, 

 the author of the mischief, will be discovered therein. In 



* Cerambyx cinctus, Drury ; Stenocona garganicta, Fabricius. 

 13 



