BEETLES 



Musk-Beetles. 



Another injurious insect is the oak bast-beetle (Scolytua intricatus), which lives 

 under the bark of deciduous trees; its tunnels being mostly horizontal. This beetle 

 is reddish brown, lustreless, with dotted stripes on the elytra, between which 

 is a series of heavy dots and many crossing wrinkles. In 1836 the larvae attacked 

 the trees of an oak-forest in France so severely, that no less than fifteen thousand 

 had to be felled. This species is especially distinguished by its strong and stout 

 shield, which is much dotted and almost wrinkled on the sides. 



The longicorns (Cerambycidce), a family of so-called four-jointed 

 beetles allied to the bast-beetles, are distinguished by an elongated 

 body, more cylindrical 

 than flat, and mostly 

 rather large, as well as 

 by the thread - shaped 

 antennae, which are 

 generally as long as or 

 even longer than the 

 body, and recall the 

 stag's antlers in their 

 position on the head. 

 The white and yellow, 

 legless, or short-legged 

 larvae develop in the 

 inside of woody plants, 

 rarely in herbaceous or 

 grassy stems, and change 

 into easily recognisable 

 pupse. One species, the 

 musk - beetle (Arom ia 

 moschata), is frequently 

 found on splitting 

 willow-logs, and is very 

 injurious to those trees; 

 it is nearly an inch long, 

 and has a slender body, 

 metallic green colouring, 

 often shading into cop- 

 per-red, an irregularly 



tuberculated thorax, and thickly roughened elytra, especially at the base. On 

 account of its colour, it is sometimes wrongly called the Spanish fly ; but it derives its 

 name from the strong odour it emits, and also produces a distinct stridulating sound. 

 In oak-forests the large oak musk-beetle (Cerambyx cerclo) is somewhat injurious ; 

 it lays its eggs only on broken surfaces of living oaks, and its larvae bore the wood 

 through in all directions. This oblong blackish brown beetle has very rough and 

 almost thorny elytra, and a warty wrinkled scutellum. In the males the antennae 

 are almost twice as long as the body, which measures from 1 to li inches in 

 length. 



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THE MUSK-BEETLE. 



