44 COLEOPTERA 



fore legs are oftentimes longer than the others, with the outer 

 edge of the shanks notched into teeth ; the feet are five- 

 jointed, and the nails are entire and equal. These beetles 

 fly abroad during the night, and frequently enter houses at 

 that time, somewhat to the alarm of the occupants ; but they 

 are not venomous, and never attempt to bite without provo- 

 cation. They pass the day on the trunks of trees, and live 

 upon the sap, for procuring which the brushes of their jaws 

 and lip seem to be designed. They are said also occasionally 

 to bite and seize caterpillars and other soft-bodied insects, for 

 the purpose of sucking out their juices. They lay their eggs 

 in crevices of the bark of trees, especially near the roots, 

 where they may sometimes be seen thus employed. The 

 larvae hatched from these eggs resemble the grubs of the 

 Scarabaeians in color and form, but they are smoother, or 

 not so much wrinkled. The grubs of the large kinds are 

 said to be six years in coming to their growth, living all 

 this time in the trunks and roots of trees, boring into the 

 solid wood, and reducing it to a substance resembling very 

 coarse sawdust ; and the injury thus caused by them is 

 frequently very considerable. When they have arrived at 

 their full size, they enclose themselves in egg-shaped pods, 

 composed of gnawed particles of wood and bark stuck to- 

 gether and lined with a kind of glue ; within these pods they 

 are transformed to pupae, of a yellowish- white color, having 

 the body and all the limbs of the future beetle encased in a 

 whitish film, which being thrown off in due time, the insects 

 appear in the beetle form, burst the walls of their prison, 

 crawl through the passages the larvae had gnawed, and come 

 forth on the outside of the trees. 



The largest of these beetles in the New England States 

 was first described by Linnaeus, under the name of Lucanus 

 Capreolus* (Fig. 20), signifying the young roebuck; but 

 here it is called the horn-bug. Its color is a deep mahogany- 



* Lucanus Dama of Fabricius. 



