124 BEETLE SCAVENGERS. 



like the Histeridte, to draw in their legs and simulate death on 

 being touched : while,, acting as their assistants in discussion of 

 bones and other desiccated remains, there come (in the form of 

 larvae) certain other consumers. These, when they arrive at 

 their maturity as pretty little coloured beetles* (some black and 

 grey and red), accustomed to frequent flowers and fragrant 

 places, we should hardly suspect of the unpleasing but useful 

 habitudes of their earlier days. These also put on death 's 

 semblance to escape death or danger. 



Let us take now a general and conclusive view of the grand 

 company of beetle scavengers, as instrumental to the benefit of 

 mankind. "\Ve must have seen already the importance of their 

 operations, even as we have slightly sketched only a few of 

 them, and as performed only on the narrow theatre of our 

 native soil, and must have noticed also the wondrous order 

 observable in their sanitary works. But it is requisite to look 

 farther to cast an eye over the whole habitable globe before 

 we can perceive, in anything like its true extent, the magni- 

 tude and method of insect agency, that, especially, of beetles, 

 as assistant to carrion-birds in the business of removing 

 offensive objects. In this survey, there becomes apparent one 

 beneficent provision of Nature (more properly of Nature's 

 God), which cannot but excite our admiration, that, namely, 

 of the geographical distribution of insect scavengers, as 

 observed always to be in exact accordance with the need for 



* Of the genus Anthrenus. 



