26 
COLEOPTERA. 
or dull brownish-yellow, with three distinct black dots on 
each ; the thorax is darker and slightly bronzed, with a black 
dot on each side ; the body beneath, and the legs, are of a 
deep bronzed green color. These beetles fly by day ; but 
may also be seen at the same time on the leaves of the grape, 
which are their only food. They sometimes prove very inju- 
rious to the vine. The only method of destroying them is 
to pick them off by hand and crush them under foot. The 
larvae live in rotten wood, such as the stumps and roots of 
dead trees , and do not differ essentially from those of other 
Scarabaeians. 
Among the tree-beetles, those commonly called dors, chaf- 
ers, May-bugs, and rose-bugs, are the most interesting to the 
farmer and gardener, on account of their extensive ravages, 
both in the winged and larva states. They were included by 
Fabricius in the genus Melolontha, a word used by the ancient 
Greeks to distinguish the same kind of insects, which were 
supposed by them to be produced from or with the flowers 
of apple-trees, as the name itself implies. 1 hese beetles, 
together with many others, for which no common names exist 
in our language, are now united in one family called Melo- 
eonth aD/E, or Melolonthians. The following are the general 
characters of these insects. The body is oblong oval, con- 
vex, and generally of a brownish color ; the antenna: are nine 
or more commonly ten jointed, the knob is much longer in 
the males than in the females, and consists generally of three 
leaf-like pieces, sometimes of a greater number, which open 
and shut like the leaves of a book ; the visor is short and 
wide ; the upper jaws are furnished at the base on the inner 
side with an oval space, crossed by ridges, like a millstone, 
for grinding ; the thorax is transversely square, or nearly so ; 
the wing-cases do not cover the whole of the body, the hinder 
extremity of which is exposed , the legs are rather long, the 
first pair armed externally with two or three teeth ; and the 
claws are notched beneath, or are split at the end like the 
nib of a pen. The powerful and horny jaws are admirably 
