54 
COLEOPTERA. 
The largest of our spring-beetles is the Elater ( Aldus ) 
oculatus of Linnaeus (Fig. 27). It is 
of a black color : the thorax is oblonir- 
square, and nearly one third the length 
of the whole body, covered above with a 
whitish powder, and with a large oval 
velvet-black spot, like an eye, on each 
side of the middle, from which the in- 
sect derives its name, oculatus , or eyed-; 
the wing-covers are marked with slen- 
der longitudinal impressed lines, and are 
sprinkled with numerous white dots ; 
the under-side of the body, and the 
legs, are covered with a white mealy powder. This large 
beetle measures from one inch and a quarter to one inch and 
three quarters in length. It is found on trees, fences, and 
the sides of buildings, in June and July. It undergoes its 
transformations in the trunks of trees. I have found many 
of them in old apple-trees, together with their larvae, which 
eat the wood, and from which I subsequently obtained the 
insects in the beetle state. These larvae are reddish-yellow 
grubs, proportionally much broader than the other kinds, 
and very much flattened. One of them, which was found 
fully grown early in April, measured two inches and a half 
in length, and nearly four tenths of an inch across the mid- 
dle of the body, and was not much narrowed at either ex- 
tremity. The head was broad, brownish, and rough above ; 
the upper jaws or nippers were very strong, curved, and 
pointed ; the eyes were small and two in number, one being 
placed at the base of each of the short antennae ; the last 
segment of the body was blackish, rough with little sharp- 
pointed warts, with a deep semicircular notch at the end, 
and furnished around the sides with little teeth, the two 
hindmost of which were long, forked, and curved upwards 
like hooks; under this segment was a large retractile fleshy 
prop-foot, armed behind with little claws, and around the 
