MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 425 



bufonius) growij, covers itself with sand ; and another nearly related to it 

 {ChcEtuphorus cretiferus K.) which frequents chalk, whitens itself all over 

 with that substance. As this animal, when clean, is very black, were it 

 not for this manoeuvre, it would be too conspicuous upon its white ter- 

 ritory to have any chance of escape from the birds and its other assailants. 

 — ISo insect is more celebrated for rendering itself hideous by a coat of 

 dirt than the Reduvius persoiiatus, a kind of bug sometimes found in 

 houses. When in its two preparatory states, every part of its body, even 

 its legs and antennae, is so covered with the dust of apartments, consisting 

 of a mixture of particles of sand, fragments of wool or silk, and similar 

 jnatters, that the animal at first would be taken for one of the ugliest 

 spiders. This grotesque appearance is aided and increased by motions 

 equally awkward and grotesque, upon which I shall enlarge hereafter. If 

 you touch it with a hair-pencil or a feather, this clothing will soon be re- 

 moved, and you may behold the creature unmasked, and in its proper 

 form. It is an insect of prey ; and amongst other victims will devour its 

 more hateful congener the bed-bug.* Its slow movements, combined 

 with its covering, seem to indicate that the object of these manoeuvres is 

 to conceal itself from observation, probably, both of its enemies and of its 

 prey. It is therefore properly noticed under my present head. 



As Hercules, after he had slain the Nemean lion, made a doublet of its 

 skin, so the larva of another insect (^Hcmerobiiis ck/ysops, a lace-winged 

 fly with golden eyes) covers itself with the skins of the luckless Aphides 

 that it has slain and devoured. From the head to the tail, this pigmy de- 

 stroyer of the helpless is defended by a thick coat, or rather mountain 

 composed of the skins, limbs, and down of these creatures. Reaumur, in 

 order to ascertain how far this covering was necessary, removed it, and 

 put the animal into a glass, at one time with a silk cocoon, and at 

 another with raspings of paper. In the first instance in the space of an 

 hour it had clothed itself with particles of the silk ; and in the second, 

 being again laid bare, it found the paper so convenient a material, that it 

 made of it a coat of unusual thickness.'* 



Insects in general are remarkable for their cleanliness ; — however filthy 

 the substances which they inhaliit, yet they so manage as to keep them- 

 selves personally neat. Several, however, by no means deserve this 

 character; and I fear you will scarcely credit me when I tell you that 



not rugulose, the vertex is channelled, the anteniiie shorter than the head ; the pro- 

 thorax is rather shining, marlied anteriorly with several excavations, in the middle 

 of which is a channel forming a reversed cross with a transverse impression. 

 Mr. Westwood remarks that the earth with which this insect is coated cannot be for 

 concealment, as above stated, because it is but rarely found so covered, and only 

 when it has by chance found its way into soft mudd}' ground, (it/orf. Class of Ins. 

 i. 119.) My own observations, however, lead to the different conclusion given 

 above. I remember as if yesterday, though thirtj'-six years since, the surprise 

 with which I saw creeping in a moist (but not watery) sand-pit at «Elloughton, 

 near Hull, when entomologising, scores of what seemed little moving masses of 

 sand, and my delight on finding the, to me, new and singular insect which was 

 concealed beneath ; and as I afterwards repeatedly found the same insect in similar 

 situations, invariably coated with sand (not earth), and never without this covering, 

 I cannot think this circumstance accidental. 



1 De Geer, iii. 283. GeoU: Hist. Ins. i. 437. 



^ Keaum. iii. 39L 



