SHOKE-BEETLKS. CI 



eject hundreds of living creatures from their hiding-places. 

 Marshy places, especially those which edge the banks of tidal 

 rivers, are well-known haunts of the BembidiidiB, which abso- 

 lutely swarm under the dead herbage, sticks, and other floating 

 refuse \\'hich is so plentifully scattered about such lands. 



Although they chiefly feed upon dead anirnal matter, they 

 can seize and devour living prey, even though the animal 

 attacked be much larger than themselves. Thus, our own little 

 Beetle, Cillenium laterale, gets under stones and bunches of sea- 

 weed for the purpose of preying on the sand-hoppers, which, as 

 everyone knows who lias walked along a sandy shore and used 

 his eyes, are fund of hiding under such shelters. The sand- 

 hopper is often twice as large as the Beetle, but yet the insect 

 seizes it under the body, holding on tightly with its notched fore 

 legs, and so eating its way into the very centre of the creature's 

 life, the nerve-cord that runs along the middle of the under 

 surface. 



The name Bembidiidffi is taken from a Greek word which 

 represented an insect of some kind. Its primary signification 

 is " a whip-top," but it was also applied to some insect. Except, 

 perhaps, that the active movements of the Bembidiidse may be 

 thought to have some fanciful resemblance to the gyrations 

 of a whip-top, I scarcely see the appropriateness of the name, 

 especially as the Bembix of the ancients was an insect that 

 buzzed, which the Bembidiidte certainly do not. 



The insect which has been selected as our foreign example 

 of the Bembidiidae is a most remarkable little creature. It 

 scarcely looks like a Beetle as it runs along, and even in a 

 cabinet it is generally mistaken for a little brown ant by non- 

 entomologists. In proportion to the general dimensions the head 

 is very large, furnished with exceedingly long antennas, powerful 

 jaws, and large, round, projecting eyes, — all tliese details point- 

 ing to the carnivorous and predacious habits of the insect, small 

 though it be. 



The head is connected with the thorax by a wonderfully thin 

 and long neck, and that again with the abdomen in a similar 

 manner, so that it really seems strange that the three parts do 

 not fall asunder as the Beetle moves. The general colour of 

 this curious little insect is shining reddish brown, except its 

 legs and antennae. The former are yellow except the latter 



