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 egos in the young and tender peapod, and the larve 
hatched from them eat portions of the peas as they grow. 
Multitudes of these larve 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 ege 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- 
