THE LEPTURIANS. 
115 
to them, signifying really narrow tail. They differ from the 
other C apricorn-beetles in the form of their eyes, which are 
not deeply notched, hut are either oval or rounded and prom- 
inent, and the antennae are more distant from them, and are 
implanted near the middle of the forehead. • Moreover, the 
head is not deeply sunk in the fore part of the thorax, but is 
connected with it by a narrowed neck. The thorax varies 
somewhat in shape, but is generally narrowed before and 
widened behind. The Lepturians are often gayly colored, 
and fly about by day, visiting flowers for the sake of the 
pollen and tender leaves, which they eat. Their grubs live 
in the trunks and stumps of trees, are rather broad and 
somewhat flattened, and are mostly furnished with six ex- 
tremely short legs. 
The largest and finest of these beetles in New England is 
the Desmocerus palliatus* (Plate II. Fig. 18,) which appears 
on the flowers and leaves of the common elder towards the 
end of June and until the middle of July. It is of a deep 
violet or Prussian-blue color, sometimes glossed with green, 
and nearly one half of the fore part of the wing-covers is 
orange-yellow, suggesting the idea of a short cloak of this 
color thrown over the shoulders, which the name palliatus , 
that is, cloaked, was designed to express. The head is nar- 
row. The thorax has nearly the form of a cone cut off at 
the top, being narrow before and wide behind ; it is somewhat 
uneven, and has a little sharp projecting point on each side 
of the base. The antennae have the third and the three fol- 
lowing joints abruptly thickened at the extremity, giving 
them the knotty appearance indicated by the generical name 
Desmocerus , which signifies knotty horn. The larvae live in 
the lower part of the stems of the elder, and devour the pith ; 
they have hitherto escaped my researches, but I have found 
the beetles in the burrows made by them. 
The bark of the pitch-pine is often extensively loosened by 
the grubs of Lepturians at work beneath it, in consequence 
* Cerambyx palliatus of Forster; Stenocorus cyaneus, Fabricius. 
