116 
COLEOPTERA. 
of which it falls off in large flakes, and the tree perishes. 
These grubs live between the hark and the wood, often in 
great numbers together, and, when they are about to become 
pupse, each one surrounds itself with an oval ring of woody 
fibres, Avithin which it undergoes its transformations. The 
beetle is matured before Avinter, but does not leave the tree 
until spring. It is the ribbed Rhagium, or 
Fig. 5-. Jlhagium Uneatum^* (^ ig* ^2,) so named be- 
cause it has three elevated longitudinal lines or 
ribs on each AAnng-cover ; and it measures from 
' four and a half to seven tenths of an inch in 
V ^ length. The head and thorax are gray, striped 
Avith black, and thickly 2:>unctured ; the anten¬ 
nae are about as long as the tAvo forenamed parts of the body 
together; the thorax is narroAv, cylindrical before and behind, 
and SAvellcd out in the middle by a large pointed Avart or 
tubercle on each side; the Aving-covers are Avide at the 
shoulders, gradually taper behind, and are slightly conA^ex 
above; they are coarsely punctured betAveen the smooth ele¬ 
vated lines, and are A^ariegated Avith reddish ash-color and 
black, the latter forming tAvo irregular transA^'erse bands ; the 
under side of the body, and the legs, are variegated Avith dull 
red, gray, and black. The gray portions on this beetle are 
occasioned by A^ery short hairs, forming a close kind of nap, 
Avhich is easily rubbed off. 
The Buprestians and the Capricorn-beetles seem evidently 
allied in their habits, both being borers during the greater 
part of their lives, and living in the trunks and limbs of trees, 
to Avhich they are more or less injurious in proportion to their 
numbers. Some of the beetles in these tAvo groups resemble 
each other closely in their forms and habits. The resem¬ 
blance betAveen the slender cylindrical Saperdas and some 
of the cylindrical Buprestians belonging to the genus Agrilus, 
is indeed very remarkable, and cannot fail to strike a common 
observer. Their larA^as also are not only very similar in 
* Sienocorus lineatus of Olivier. 
