48 
COLEOPTERA. 
Fig. 22. 
larvae. The solid trunks and limbs of sound and vigorous 
trees are often bored through in various directions by these 
insects, which, during a long-continued life, derive their only 
nourishment from the woody fragments they devour. Pines 
and firs seem particularly subject to their attacks, but other 
forest-trees do not escape, and even fruit-trees are frequently 
injured by these borers. The means to be used for destroy- 
ing them are similar to those employed against other borers, 
and will be explained in a subsequent part of this essay. It 
may not be amiss, however, here to remark, that woodpeckers 
are much more successful in discovering the retreats of these 
borers, and in dragging out the defenceless culprits from their 
burrows, than the most skilful gardener or nurseryman. 
The largest of these beetles in this part of the United 
States is the Buprestis ( Chalcophora) Vir- 
ginica (Fig. 22) of Drury, or Virginian 
Buprestis. It is of an oblong oval form, 
brassy, or copper-colored ; sometimes almost 
black, with hardly any metallic reflections. 
The upper side of the body is roughly punc- 
tured ; the top of the head is deeply in- 
dented ; on the thorax there are three pol- 
ished black elevated lines ; on each wing-cover are two small 
square impressed spots, a long elevated smooth black line 
near the outer, and another near the inner margin, with sev- 
eral short lines of the same kind between them ; the under- 
side of the body is sparingly covered with short whitish down. 
It measures from eight tenths of an inch to one inch or more 
in length. This beetle appears towards the end of May, and 
through the month of June, on pine-trees and on fences. In 
the larva state it bores into the trunks of the different kinds 
of pines, and is oftentimes very injurious to these trees. 
The wild cherry-tree ( Prunus serotina), and also the 
garden cherry and peach trees, suffer severely from the at- 
tacks of borers, which are transformed to the beetles called 
Buprestis (Bicercd) divaricata by Mr. Say, because the wing- 
