
COLEOPTERA. 
RUPRESTLISO. Vittara. 
GOLDEN-STRIPE BUPRESTIS. 
GENERIC CHARACTER. 
Antennz fetaceous, as long as the thorax. Head half retra¢ted, or drawn back within the thorax. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTER. 
Elytra impreffed with points or fpots: marked with four longitudinal ridges, and terminated in two teeth 
or fpines; a ribbon-like ftripe of golden yellow, down each elytron. 
Buprestis Vittara: elytris bidentatis pun¢tatis: lineis quatuor elevatis viridi zneis vittaque lata aurea. 
Fab. Ent. Syft. 1. p. 2. 186. 5. 
Buprefte Bande-dorée. Of. Inf: 32. tab. 3. fig. 17. 

The Bupreftides form an extenfive, and moft brilliant tribe of coleopterous infeéts.  Brafil and New 
Holland produce fome gigantic fpecies, but none more beautiful than thofe of India. We need adduce 
no other proof of this, than Bupreftis chryfis, fternicorus, attenuata, ocellata, and vittata. Thefe wrought 
into various devices, and trinkets, decorate the drefles * of the natives in many parts of India. The 
Bupreftis vittata in particular, is much admired among them. It is, we believe, entirely peculiar to China, 
where it is found in vaft abundance, and diftributed from thence at a low price among the other Indians. 
The Chinefe, who always profit by the curiofity of Europeans, colleét vaft quantities of this Bupreftis, 
and other gay infeéts, in the interior of the country, and traffic with them. 
A confiderable error feems to have arifen concerning this fpecies, and the true Bupreftis ignita of Lin- 
neus. All authors, except Fabricius and Olivier, have confidered the Bupreftis vittata, and ignita, the fame. 
Fabricius, in his Species Infectorum, refers to Muf. Dom. Banks only, for the Bupreftis vittata; and to the 
14th figure, plate 6, in Su/zer's work, for a figure of Bupreftisignita. In the Entomologia Sy/tematica we 
however find the fame reference to the figure of Su/zer, for B. vittata’; and, to increafe the perplexity, 
precifely the fame reference under that of B. ignita * alfo. 
x A pair of flippers embroidered with little pieces of the wing cafes of this infeét is preferved in the Leverian Mufeum 
y Vol. I. part 2. p. 186. 5. 
Vol. I. part 2. p. 192. 28. 

