THE FLOWER AND THE BEE 



take their name from the genus Scarabceus, famous in art and 

 Egyptian mythology. They are partly scavengers and partly 

 leaf -chafers, comparatively few visiting flowers. Armies of 

 rose-chafers {M acrodactijlus suhspinosus) often strip rose-bushes 

 and other shrubs of both flowers and leaves (Fig. 90, No. 9), 

 or devour the blossoms and ruin the crop of grapes. The com- 

 mon June-bugs defoliate trees, and on a warm evening the noise 

 of their wings may be heard for a long distance. In these war- 

 like days it is of interest to recall that a host of June-bugs 

 once put British soldiers to flight near Boston. In John Trum- 

 bull's epic poem "M'Fingal" it is stated that, absurd as it 

 may seem, it was a fact that some British officers, soon after 

 Gage's arrival in Boston, while walking on Beacon Hill, shortly 

 after sunset were greatly frightened by the sound made by 

 flying June-bugs, which they took to be the sound of bullets. 

 They left the hill in great haste, alarmed their camp, and 

 later wrote home to England terrible accounts of being shot at 

 with air-guns. 



"No more each Britisli Colonel runs 

 From whizzing beetles as air-guns; 

 Think horn-bugs bullets, or through fears 

 Musketoes takes for musketeers." 



The snout-beetles or weevils (RhyncopJiora), an immense 

 group highly injurious to vegetation, seldom visit flowers, and 

 as pollinators are of little importance. The long snout is used 

 in excavating little pits in which they lay their eggs. 



The wood-borers {Cerambycidce), on the contrary, rank first 

 in importance as flower-visitors among the families of the 

 Coleoptera. They are present in great abundance on densely 

 clustered small flowers, such as New Jersey tea (Ceanothus), 

 viburnum, the cornels, spiraea, and chokeberry. They prefer 



190 



