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Show 338 INSECTA. BurRESTIS, Lin. The generic appellation of Richard, given to these Coleoptera b Geoffroy, intimates the richness of their livery. Sev~ral of th~ European species, and many that are foreign to that country, be. sides their size, are remarkable for a brilliant polished gold colour on an emerald ground; in others, an azure blue glistens over the gold, or there is a union of several other metallic colours. Their body, in general, is oval, somewhat wider and ohtuse, or truncated before, and narrowed behind ft·om the base of the abdomen, which occupies the greater part of its length. The eyes arc oval, and the thorax is short ancl wide. The scutel small or null. The cxtrem. ity of the elytra is more or less dentated in many. The legs are short. They walk very slowly, but fly well in hot and dry weather. When about to be seized, they let themselves fall to the ground. At the posterior extremity of the abdomen of the females is a coriaceous ' laminiform, conical appendage, composed of three parts, the last annuli of the abdomen; it is properly an instrument with which they deposit their ova in dry wood, the habitat of their larvre. Several small species are met with on leaves and flowers; most of the others f . , however, are ound m forests, and wood-yards: they sometimes ap· pear in houses, where they have been transported, in wood, in the state of a larva or chrysalis. Sometimes the antennre are at most dentated like a saw. The intermediate joints of the tarsi are in the form of a reversed heart, and the penultimate, at least, is bifid. The palpi are filiform or very little thicker at the end. The jaws are bilobate. BuPRESTis, Lin. In the true Buprestis, the antennre are of equal thickness through· out and serrated from the thit·d or fourth joint. Some have no scutel. B.fasciculata, L.; Oliv., Col. II, 32, IV, 38. Aboutaninch long; ovoid, convex; densely punctured and wl'inkled; of a golden or cuprcous-green, sometimes dusky, with little tufts of yellowish or reddish hairs; elytra entire. From the Cape of Good Hope, where it is often found in such abundance on the same sh1·ub, that the plant seems loaded with flowers. B. sternicornis, L.; Oliv., Col., lb., VI, 52, a. Somewhat lat·ger, and of the same form; green, slightly gilded, and very brilliant; large punctures, ornamented at bottom with whitish scales on the elytra; th1·ee teeth at their extremity; poststernum projecting in the form of a hom. The East Indies. COLEOPTERA. 339 B. chr~sis, :a~.; Oliv., lb., II, 8, VI, 52, 6. Differing from the stermcot·ms m the elytra, which are chesnut-brown and without whitish spots. ' B. vittata, Fab.; Oliv., lb. III, 17. Nearly an inch and a half long; narrowe: and more elongated than the preceding species; depressed; blutsh-green; four elevated lines, and a cup1·eous and golden band on each elytron, the end of which is bidentate. East Indies. B. ocellata, Fab.; Oliv., lb. I, 3. Almost similar to the preceding in form and size; a large, yellow, phosphoric spot between two golden ones, on each elytron, which is tridentate at the extremity. 'fhe others are furnished with a scutel. B. gigas, L.; Oliv., lb. I, 1. Two inches long; thorax cupreous, :nixed with brilliant.green. and two large smooth spots ~f but·m~hed steel; elytra tndentatc at the extremity, cupreous tn the mtddle, bronze-green on the margin, with impressed puncta, and elevated lines and rugre. Cayenne. B. affinis, Fab.; B. chrysostigma, Oliv., lb., VI, 54. Bronze a~ove, brilliant cupreous beneath; elytra serrated at the point, with three elevated longitudinal lines, and two golden impressions on each. France. B. viridis, L.; Oliv., lb., XI, 127. About two lines and a half long; linear; bronze-green; elytt·a entire and dotted. On the trees in France( 1 ). Fabricius has separated from the true Bupresthles those in which the body is shorter, wider in pt·oportion, and almost triangular; the rron.t concave, thorax transversal and lobate posteriorly; where the tarst are very short and the pellets broad. The five last joints only o~the antennre here form the teeth of the saw, the pt·eceding ones, lflth the exception of the two first, being small almost granose or b • ' ' 0 comcal; t_he two first are much stouter. These species compose the genus 1 RAOHYs(2), one of which is B. m·inuta, L.; Olir., lb., II, 14. Black underneath; cupreous- brown above; middle of the front indented; postet·ior mat·gin (1) Add of the Am er1· can spec1· es o f t Il·iS be. auh·f ul and numerous genus the B. ron~uenta, latera/is, atropurpure:us, 6-guttata, gibbicollis, granulata, viridicornis, gemmata divaricata lo · · · . . h , h ' , nglpes, cyampes, campestrls, &c. &c., for the descr1pbons of Pwb '1lc ds ee Say' s paper on Coleopterous Insects, &c.; Jour. Acad. Nat. Sc. of 1 a · IH, P· 159, et seq. .11m. Ed. th(2J ,8,e~ the othet• species quoted by Fabricius, Syst. Eleut., II, 218; and as to S e diVISIOns that are to be established in the genus, see Schcenherr, Insect. ' ynon. |
