BUPliESTIDJE. 



149 



is retractile within the prothorax ; the antennae are extremely 

 short, and there are no ocelli ; the legs are rudimentary or absent ; 

 the mandibles are short, hard, and toothed, and so fitted for 

 gnawing galleries in the wood in which they live ; the abdominal 

 segments are nine in number, and the anal process projects and 

 looks like a tenth segment. The larvae are mostly found in wood, 



Fig. 65. — Euchroma columbicum larva. (Natural size.— After Schiodte.) 



but some are, apparently, herbivorous. Like many other wood- 

 feeding species, they have, in numerous instances, been carried from 

 one country to another, and been wrongly considered as indigenous ; 

 the old stories, however, of their emerging in the perfect state 

 from articles of furniture in a country quite foreign to them after 

 an interval of as much as twenty years, certainly require further 

 confirmation. 



