1008 



FAMILY LII. — CERAMBYCID^E. 



flattened, with only the thorax cylindrical. All agree in having 

 the antenna} very long, these organs being with few exceptions much 

 longer than the head and thorax and often longer than the entire 

 body. However, in but one genus (Prionus) are they more than 11- 

 jointed, the great length of the individual joints causing the in- 

 crease in length of the organ. The family name is from the generic 

 name Cerambyx given by Linnaeus, which is from the Greek and 

 means "a beetle and horn," and the Latin word Longicomes, often 

 given to the family, means also ' ' long-horns. ' ' 



The color is variable, often very handsome, and the beetles are 

 therefore great favorites among collectors. They are usually strong 

 fliers and swift runners ; but many of them have the habit of re- 

 maining motionless, as if dazed, upon the trunks or limbs of trees 

 and can then be readily picked up by the fingers. When so caught 

 they generally vent their anger by making a peculiar squeaking or 

 stridulating noise by rapidly moving the pro- upon the meso-thorax. 

 Many species of the family may be taken by carefully beating 

 branches (especially if partially dead) and flowers, over a sheet or 

 an umbrella, Dead logs should be searched, on both the upper and 

 under surfaces, and particularly freshly cut timber or sawed lum- 

 ber. A morning spent in a woodyard will often repay one richly 

 in rare specimens. Some are to be found commonly under bark and 

 may be trapped by loosely fastening pieces of bark to a tree over 

 night and examining the under side of the bark in the morning. 

 A great number fly to lights after dusk. Dead twigs and branches 

 may be sawed or cut off, preferably during the autumn months, and 

 kept in large boxes or in an empty room until the beetles are dis- 

 closed through the development of the larva? contained therein. 



The principal characters of the Cerambycida?, briefly stated, are 

 as follows: Labial palpi three-jointed; maxilla? with two lobes, 

 clothed at the tip with bristles ; mandibles usually curved and acute 

 at tip, sometimes, though rarely, very long ; eyes usually transverse, 

 frequently deeply emarginate or even entirely divided; antenna? 

 inserted either in front of or between the eyes, often borne on large 

 frontal tubercles, their sensitive surfaces differing in the tribes; 

 thorax not margined except in the first subfamily; elytra usually 

 with distinct epipleura? and covering the abdomen, the latter with 

 five free ventral segments, the sixth visible in many males and occa- 

 sionally in both sexes; iegs usually slender, hind coxa? transverse; 

 tarsi apparently 4-jointed, joints one to three furnished beneath 



