Volume 8, Plate XIX / Entomology (Insects)

Heteromera

1. Horia maculata. About sixteen lines long, uniform reddish yellow with seven black spots on each wing-case, six arranged in pairs and the seventh at the apex, the mandibles, antennae, and legs shining black save the thigh bases. It deposits its eggs in the nests of carpenter-bees and its larvae consume the bee’s food store; not rare near Rio Janeiro and tropical America, found under bark, moving slowly and emitting an odorous yellow fluid when handled.
2. Meloe variegatus. A wingless blistering beetle with oval diverging elytra leaving much of the abdomen uncovered, of a brassy lustre variegated with purple and violet, the dark copper thorax and elytra glossed at the sides with violet, the latter rough with small tubercles. The abdomen is dark green with coppery violescent segment margins, the under side golden and purple, the legs black inclining to violet; the most beautiful of its genus, found uncommonly in southern England.
3. Blister Beetle. The well-known Blister-beetle or Spanish fly, six to ten lines long, entirely golden green with black antennae, the head with a deep impressed central line and the thorax rather unequal in surface. The elytra are corrugated like leather with two or three raised lines, and the blistering property resides in a principle named Cantharadine; appearing about midsummer in France on ash and lilac, it is collected for commerce in Spain in June.
4. Cantharis Nuttalli. Head and thorax deep green tinted with golden yellow, the thorax scattered with unequal punctures and a central line, the elytra deep red or purple with a golden gloss and rough, bearing slightly elevated lines. The under parts are bright green, the legs, antennae, and palpi nearly black; said to surpass the famed Vesicatoria, it inhabits the western region near the Rocky Mountains, observed in numerous flocks on diminutive bushes.