480 



CLASS INSECTA. 



corslet a little dilated, and marked with an impression 

 towards the middle of the lateral edge sometimes black and 

 sometimes red. Four elevated lines on the elytra, whose 

 outer edge is of the ground colour. There are white trian- 

 gular spots on the sides of the abdomen. The anal stylet 

 narrows insensibly to a point. 



M. Hippocastani, Fab. Oliv. ibid, I. 3, a, b, c, which was 

 at first confounded with the last, is a little smaller, shorter, 

 more convex with the elytra, bordered with black, the anal 

 stylet shorter in proportion, and more contracted towards the 

 end, which appears thence to be larger and obtuse. 



The alimentary tube of S. melolontha is, according to 

 Dufour (Annal. des Sciences Nat. III. 234), less extended 

 than that of copris, but with the parietes more robust. The 

 chylific ventricle is entirely deprived of papillae, and is 

 elegantly fringed at the surface by the hepatic vessels. The 

 slender intestine is followed by a sort of colon having interior 

 valves formed like small triangular pockets imbricated, dis- 

 posed on six longitudinal series, separated by as many mus- 

 cular chords. This naturalist has often found these pockets 

 filled with a green vegetable pulp. The biliary vessels are 

 of an extremely delicate structiu'e, forming multiplied folds, 

 many of them having, right and left, little barbets like a 

 fringe. The male organ is large, very hard^ terminated by 

 two strong hooks, and has toward its hinder third part an 

 articulation. Each testicle is an aglomeration of six sper- 

 matic capsules, orbicular as if umbilical, and each furnished 

 with its own tubular conduit, so as to resemble those leaves 

 designated by botanists by the term pelta. 



These insects appear in some years in such great abundance, 

 that they despoil of their leaves in a short time large extents 

 of woods. The larvae are not less destructive to our gar- 

 dens, and is commonly called the white worm. 



A fourth species, M. villosa, Oliv. ibid I. 4, is distinguish- 



