COLEOPTERA, OR SHEATH-WINGED INSECTS. 251 



flowers of the golden-rod. Its body looks like black vel- 

 vet. Its head and chest are crossed with yellow lines, 

 and its elytra have lines of the same color variously ar- 

 ranged. The female deposits her eggs in the crevices 

 of the bark of locust-trees, and the grubs hatched from 

 them eat the wood and the pith, making winding pas- 

 sages in doing this, and, of course, proving destructive to 

 many of these trees. There is in the southern parts of 

 our country a Beetle of this family three and a half inches 

 long, called the Stag Beetle Capricorn, because its formi- 

 dable jaws, an inch in length, are like those of the Stag 

 Beetles. In South America is found a splendid Beetle, 

 called the Long-armed Capricorn, its fore legs being five 

 inches in length. It is of a dark olive-green color, with 

 markings of red, yellow, and white, resembling hiero- 

 glyphics. 



434. The Spanish Fly, which is used in making the 

 common blistering plaster, is an herbivorous Beetle. It 

 has a brilliant green metallic hue. It is the powder of 

 the dried Beetles that makes the basis of the blistering 

 salve another example of animal chemistry both won- 

 derful and mysterious, 170. 



435. The Curculios or Weevils are a family of herbiv- 

 orous Beetles that do great injury to fruits and grains. 

 The perfect insect deposits its eggs in them, and the 

 grubs or maggots live on the substance in which they 

 are hatched. Thus a little hairy gray Beetle deposits 

 its eggs in the young and tender peapod, and the larvae 

 hatched from them eat portions of the peas as they grow. 

 Multitudes of these larvae are boiled in the peas prepared 

 for the table. So also in almost every seed-pea there is 

 either a Beetle or an opening from which one has come 

 out. In the same way the maggot found in the chest- 

 nut comes from an egg deposited in it by a Beetle in an 

 early stage of the fruit. So also in the apple and other 

 fruits. 



436. These "Weevils, or Snout Beetles, have an appa- 



