STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETV. 
481 
oS us, meaning slightly or somewhat spined, has allusion to the 
sides of the thorax which jut out into an obtuse angle merely, 
many beetles closely related to this having sharp pointed spines 
or teeth where this angle occurs. In Dr. F. E. Melsheimer’s 
Catalogue of Coleoptera, lately published, Linnaeus is cited as 
having originally given this name to this species, but on what 
authority it is credited to him does not appear. Dr. Harris says 
this insect was first named and described by Fabricius in 1781; 
but this author had previously described it (Syst. Entom. p. 39) 
in the year 1775; and this appears to be the first notice of.it on 
record. Herbst subsequently described it under the name don- 
gala and Beauvois under that of angustata , both these names 
having allusion to its long, narrow form. 
The Rose-bug is 0.35 long or a little less. (The figure, plate 2, fig. 3 is in¬ 
tended to represent it its natural size.) It is covered with minute scales which 
give it a buff or ochre yellow color above, the head and thorax being of a 
lighter yellow tint, and the under side of the body is white. If these scales 
are rubbed off, the head, thorax and under side of the body is black and the 
wing covers yellowish brown. The antennae are bright tawny yellow, their 
tips black. When extended backward they reach the middle of the thorax. 
They are composed of nine joints (as shown, magnified, plate 2, fig. 3 a), the 
three last being long, flattened and shutting together like the leaves of a book, 
and forming a large oval knob. The mouth and feelers arc tawny yellowish- 
red often tinged more or less with black. The thorax is longer than wide, nar¬ 
rower than the wing covers, broadest across its middle, where on each side it 
bulges outwards forming almost an angular protuberance, from whence it is 
strongly narrowed both before and behind, making it nearly six-sided. The 
scutel between the base of the wing covers is rounded at its tip and almost 
semicircular, being rather longer than broad. The wing covers have slightly 
elevated ridges lengthwise. The whole of the last segment of the abdomen is 
exposed beyond their tips and is inclined obliquely downwards. The legs are 
bright tawny yellow, the four hind shanks are black at their tips and armed 
with a pair of thorn-like spines. The feet are alike in both sexes; each joint 
is narrower towards its base and of a tawny yellow color, black at its tip and 
furnished with a crown of black spines and bristles. The feet end in two strong 
claws or hooks of equal size, the tips of which are split. 
This species presents several varieties, the scales being sometimes grayish- 
white above instead of yellow, the thorax beneath the scales brownish-red, &c. 
The rose-bug first strongly excited public attention, in Massa¬ 
chusetts, in the year 1825, and the accounts of the extensive de¬ 
vastation which it was producing in various parts of the State 
induced the Massachusetts Agricultural Society to offer a pre¬ 
mium for an essay upon its natural history, and some probable 
means for checking its progress. No such essay being presented 
