12 INSECTS ABROAD. 



that the larva is able to scuttle up and down its tunnel 

 with such rapidity. I never had the opportunity of seeing the 

 larvae of these exotic Tiger Beetles alive ; but if their habits 

 resemble those of our British species as much as their forms, 

 there can be no difficulty in understanding the mode of their 

 existence. 



Perhaps some of my readers may be, or may have been, 

 mighty bird-nesters, and been forced to climb trees which ran 

 to some thirty or forty feet without a branch, and were far too 

 large to be clasped by the arms and legs. Boys cannot carry 

 ladders about with them, and the tree is absolutely inaccessible 

 by ordinary means. But there is a hawk's nest on the topmost 

 branches of the tree, and it is clearly impossible to allow the 

 eggs to be hatched without paying a fair toll to the discoverer 

 of the nest. So, out come the " climbing spurs," iron stirrups 

 strapped to the foot, and having on the inside of each foot a 

 i^harp hook, with point downwards. A long withy is now cut — 

 or in default of the withy a stout piece of iron wire will do — 

 and is passed round the tree-trunk. The nest-hunter takes the 

 ends of the withy in his hands, raising the loop as high as he 

 can, and then jumps at the tree, supporting his body by the 

 withy, and driving his climbing-irons well into the bark. By a 

 judicious shifting of feet, the young climber very soon finds 

 himself among the branches, where his spurs are worse than 

 useless, and he hangs them on a branch while he goes after 

 the eggs. 



Now, except that the Tiger Beetle grub has to climb the inside 

 of a cylinder instead of the outside, the mode of climbing is 

 exactly the same. The larva stretches its body so as to raise 

 itself as high as possible, and slightly bends its back, so that 

 the points of the hooks hitch into the side of the tunnel. It 

 then contracts its body, so as to haul itself up, and so, by re- 

 peating the process, rapidly reaches the mouth of the burrow. 

 When there, the hooks which raised it serve to keep it in posi- 

 tion ; and when it wishes to descend, it has only to unhitch the 

 hooks and straighten the body, when it slides down by its own 

 weight. The larva seen in the illustration is drawn from a 

 specimen in the British Museum. 



Mr. W. Bates, in his " Naturalist on the Amazons," doseribes 

 sundry species of Tetracha, and gives miu'h cui'ious and valu- 



