COLEOPTERA. 50/ 



Another genus of this family is Meloe, with very short elytra, and 

 without wings. They walk slowly and with difliculty on low plants, 

 the female dragging along an enormous abdomen filled with eggs. 

 They are generally observed in spring. In Germany they give them 

 the name oi Alam'ii?^m (May^vorm). Their succulence would expose 

 them, without doubt, to the voracity of birds and of insect-eating 

 Mammifers if they had not the power of exuding at will, in the 

 moment of danger, from all their articulations, an unctuous humour 



Fig. 545.-Sitaris humeralis. Fig. 546.-First lan-a of Sitaris humeralls 



^ ^^^ (magnified). 



of a reddish-yellow colour, the odour and probably also the caustic 

 properties of which repel the aggressor. The females lay their eggs 

 undero-round, and out of these come forth larvae of a strange shape. 

 Swallowed by cattle, they cause them to swell and die. It is for this 

 reason that Latreille has given it as his opinion that these insects are 

 the Buprcstis of the ancients, of which the law of Cornelius speaks, 

 - Lex Cornelia de sicanis et veneficis." But the name of f f ^'^f ^ 

 was apphed by Linnceus to a genus of which we shall treat farther 

 on, and it has been generally adopted by naturalists 



'The commonest among the Melocs is the Meloe proscarabcEt^ 

 which is to be found in abundance, m the month of Apri , m the 

 meadows near the bridge of Ivry in the environs of Pans I he 

 metamorphoses of the insects of this family had remamed for a long 



