THE SPRING-BEETLES. 
51 
times copper-colored; the wing-covers are thickly punctured; 
and on each there are three small tawny yellow spots, with 
sometimes an additional one by the side of the first spot; 
the tips are rounded, and the fore legs are not toothed. It 
varies very much in size, measuring from about three to 
four tenths of an inch in length. I have taken this insect 
fi’om the trunks of the white pine in the month of June, and 
have seen others that were found in the Oregon Territory. 
Professor Hentz has described a small and broad beetle 
having the form of the above, under the name of Buprestis 
(^Chrysohothris) Harrisii. (Plate II. Fig. 2.) It is entirely of 
a brilliant blue-green color, except the sides of the thorax, and 
the thighs, which in the male are copper-colored. It meas¬ 
ures a little more than three tenths of an inch in lencrth. 
Tlie larvae of this species inhabit the small limbs of the white 
pine, and young sapling trees of the same kind, upon which 
I have repeatedly captured the beetles about the middle of 
June. 
These seven species form but a very small part of the Bu- 
prestians inhabiting Massachusetts and the other Xew Eng¬ 
land States. , My knowledge of the habits of the others is not 
sufficiently perfect to render it w^orth while to insert descrip¬ 
tions of them here. The concealed situation of the grubs of 
these beetles, in the trunks and limbs of trees, renders it 
very difficult to discover and dislodo-e them. When trees 
fc. O 
are found to be very much infested by them, and are going 
to decay in consequence of the ravages of these borers, it will 
be better to cut them down, and burn them immediately, 
rather than to suffer them to stand until the borers have 
completed their transformations and made their escape. 
Closely related to the Buprestians are the Elaters, or 
spring-beetles, (Elateridje,) which are w^ell known by the 
faculty they have of throwing themselves upwards Avith a 
jerk, Avhen laid on their backs. On the under-side of the 
breast, between the bases of the first pair of legs, there is a 
short blunt spine, the point of Avhich is usually concealed in 
