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 tinie 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 fiiture 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. 
