Beetles 
267 
truncate in front, as if cut sharply off, and the body rather cylindrical than 
flattened, as with most other Buprestids. A. ruficollis, the red-necked black¬ 
berry-borer, t 3 0 - inch long, with dark bronze head, coppery bronze prothorax, 
and black wing-covers, has a larva that bores into the canes of blackberries and 
raspberries, burrowing spirally about in the sapwood until full-grown, when 
it bores to the pith and there pupates. The eggs are laid in June and July 
011 the young canes. Infested canes often show gall-like swellings, and 
should be cut off and burned. 
Our largest Buprestids belong to the genus Chalcophora. C. virginiensis 
is an inch long, dark coppery or blackish with elevated lines and depressed 
spots on the elytra. The larvae bore into pines. C. liberta (PI. II, Fig. 3) is 
a beautiful pink bronze with darker raised lines. Dicerca divaricata, f inch 
long, is copper-colored, with the black-dotted elytra tapering behind and 
separated at the tips. Buprestis (PI. II, Fig. 8) is a genus of rather large 
brassy-green or brassy-black species often spotted with yellow on the elytra 
and beneath. 
Resembling the Buprestids much in general shape and appearance, the 
click-beetles, Elateridae, are readily distinguished from them by their lack 
of metallic colors, the backward-projecting, sharp-pointed hinder angles 
of the prothorax, and their curious capacity, whence 
their name, of springing into the air with a sharp click 
when laid back downward. When a click-beetle— 
snapping-bugs and skipjacks are other common names 
for them—is disturbed it falls to the ground, lying 
there for a little while as if dead. Then if it has 
alighted, as it usually does, on its back, it suddenly 
gives a spasmodic jerk which throws it several inches 
high and brings it down right side up. This springing 
is accomplished by means of an apparatus consisting 
of a small cavity on the under side of the mesothorax 
into which the point of a curved projecting process 
from the prosternum fits (Fig. 367). When the beetle is 
laid on its back it bends in such a way as to bring the 
tip of the curved horn to the edge of the cavity, when, 
by a sudden release of muscular tension this tip slips and the insect is 
thrown into the air. The Elateridae are a large family, about 350 species 
being known in this country. They are mostly of small or medium size, 
although some are an inch or more long; a very few reach a length of 
nearly two inches. As a rule they are uniform brownish; some blackish 
or grayish and others banded and marked with brighter colors. In the 
South occur certain luminous click-beetles. In Cuba ladies sometimes use 
these phosporescent species, which are large and emit a strong greenish 
Fig. 367. — Ventral 
aspect of a large 
click-beetle, show¬ 
ing snapping appa¬ 
ratus. (Natural 
size.) 
