THE AMERICAN CETONIANS. 41 



brown, but changeable, with pearly and metallic tints, and 

 spattered with numerous irregular black spots ; the under- 

 side of the body, which is very hairy, is of a black color, with 

 the edges of the rings and the legs dull red. It measures 

 about six tenths of an inch in length. During the summer 

 months the Indian Cetonia is not seen ; but about the middle 

 of September a new brood comes forth, the beetles appearing 

 fresh and bright, as though they had just completed their last 

 transformation. At this time they may be found on the 

 flowers of the golden-rod, eating the pollen, and also in great 

 numbers on corn-stalks, and on the trunks of the locust-tree, 

 feeding upon the sweet sap of these plants. Fortunate would 

 it be for us if they fed on these only ; but their love of sweets 

 leads them to attack our finest peaches, which, as soon as 

 ripe, they begin to devour, and in a very few hours entirely 

 spoil. I have taken a dozen of them from a single peach, 

 into which they had burrowed so that nothing but the naked 

 tips of their hind-body could be seen ; and not a ripe peach 

 remained unbitten by them on the tree. When touched, they 

 leave a strong and disagreeable scent upon the fingers. On 

 the approach of cold weather they disappear, but I have not 

 been able to ascertain what becomes of them at this time, and 

 only conjecture that they get into some warm and sheltered 

 spot, where they pass the winter in a torpid state, and in the 

 spring issue from their retreats, and finish their career by 

 depositing their eggs for another brood. Those that are seen 

 in the spring want the freshness of the autumnal beetles, a 

 circumstance that favors my conjecture. Their hovering over 

 and occasionally dropping upon the surface of the ground, is 

 probably for the purpose of selecting a suitable place to enter 

 the earth and lay their eggs. Hence I suppose that their 

 lar^^se or grubs may live on the roots of herbaceous plants. 



The other Cetonian beetle to be described is the Osmo- 

 derma scaber* or rough Osmoderma (Fig. 18). It is a large 



* Trichins scaber, Palisot de Bsauvois; Gymnodus scaber, Kirby. 

 6 



