THE CAPRICORN-BEETLES. 
101 
which they arc crowded. Just before they are about to be 
transformed, they bore into the solid wood to the depth of 
several inches. They are said to be very injurious to the 
sapling pines in Maine. Professor Peck supposed this species 
of Callidium to have been introduced into Europe in timber 
exported from this country, as it is found in most parts of 
that continent that have been much connected with North 
America by navigation. Thus Europe and America seem 
to have interchanged the porter and violet Callidium, which, 
by means of shipping, have now become common to the two 
continents. 
From the regularity of its form, and the noble size it 
attains, the sugar-maple is accounted one of the most beau- 
tiful of our forest-trees, and is esteemed as one of the most 
valuable, on account of its many useful properties. This 
fine tree suffers much from the attacks of borers, which in 
some cases produce its entire destruction. We are indebted 
to the Rev. L. W. Leonard, of Dublin, N. H., for the first 
account of the habits and transformations of these borers. 
In the summer of 1828, his attention was called to some 
young maples, in Keene, which were in a languishing condi- 
tion. lie discovered the insect in its beetle state under the 
loosened bark of one of the trees, and traced the recent 
track of the larva three inches into the solid wood. In the 
course of a few years, these trees, upon the cultivation of 
which much care had been bestowed, were nearly destroyed 
by the borers. The failure, from the same cause, of sev- 
eral other attempts to raise the sugar-maple, has since 
come to my knowledge. The insects are changed to beetles, 
and come out of the trunks of the trees in July. In the 
vicinity of Boston, specimens have been repeatedly taken, 
which were undoubtedly brought here in maple logs from 
Maine. The beetle was first described in 1824, in the Ap- 
pendix to Keating’s “ Narrativ<^)f Long’s Expedition,” by 
Mr. Say, who called it Olytus speciosus ; that is, the beauti- 
ful Clytus* (Plate II. Fig. 15.) It was afterwards inserted, 
