114 THE SERRICORNIA. 



jacks, and from tlie sharp click with which the sudden 

 extension of the body is accompanied^ they are also 

 called Click Beetles. The purpose for which this 

 faculty has been conferred upon them is evidently 

 that of enabling them to regain their feet when they 

 accidentally fall upon their backs, their legs being too 

 short to render them much assistance in this opera- 

 tion, which is not of unfrequent occurrence in the 

 course of their lives, as on the approach of danger they 

 immediately drop from any object on which they may be 

 crawling, and assume their ingenious mimicry of death. 



The power of springing in this way when laid upon 

 their backs is not, however, enjoyed by all the beetles 

 in which the prostemum is terminated by a spine : a 

 vast number of large and splendid exotic species 

 belonging to the genus Buprestis and its allies are 

 incapable of performing any such remarkable pranks. 

 We have several examples of these insects in this 

 country also, but they are for the most part of small 

 size, and nearly all are of considerable rarity. 



Of the Click Beetles however, Britain possesses 

 plenty of examples, and many of these are very com- 

 mon. They are all of small or moderate size, the 

 largest being less than an inch in length. They are 

 found upon the herbage of our fields and hedgebanks, 

 on flowers, posts, and the stumps of trees. Their 

 larvae are long, slender, and either slightly flattened 

 or cylindrical, usually covered with a hard skin, and 

 furnished with a horny head and six short legs. They 

 are found principally in rotten wood, and under the 

 bark of trees, where they feed upon vegetable matters : 

 the larvae of Buprestis and its allies, on the contrary, 

 bore into and feed upon the solid wood of trees, to 

 which they sometimes do considerable damage ; and 



