224 Bugs, Butterflies, and Beetles 



the cabbage is put on the stove and all the windows 

 and doors are carefully closed, they creep under 

 the door and over the sill, they work themselves in 

 sideways through a crack below the window sill 

 and soon you hear them buzzing in every corner 

 of the room. But never, on any occasion, has the 

 scent of cabbage attracted the carrion beetles. 



From these amusing facts it seems that either 

 the carrion beetles find their food by some other 

 means than following their noses or that they have 

 a finer sense of smell than has the blue-bottle fly. 

 Whatever the reason is, if I find a dead frog or 

 mouse near my log house and with a stick push the 

 body to one side, it will never fail to reveal several 

 varieties of carrion beetles scurrjdng around where 

 the dead body lay. 



RO^-E BEETLES 



You may recognize the Rove beetle by the fact 

 that it has outgrown its clothes. Its skirts are too 

 short, they are so short that in place of skirts they 

 might well be called kilts, in other words the 

 elytra or wing covers are very short, leaving the 

 naked body, belly or abdomen of the insect more 

 than half exposed (Fig. 205). The beetle seems 

 conscious of its nakedness and when it runs it raises 



