242 MEANS or DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



are numerous examples in almost every order; for, 

 next to plants and vegetable substances, insects, of anv 

 part of the creation, afford the greatest diversity of 

 odours. In the Coleoptera order a very common beetle, 

 the whirlwig- {Gyrinus Natator^ L.), will infect your 

 finger for a long time with a disagreeable rancid smell ; 

 while two other species, G. minuhts and villosus, are 

 scentless. — Those unclean feeders, the carrion beetles 

 (Silphce, L.), as might be expected from the nature of 

 their food, are at the same time very fetid. — Pliny tells 

 us of a Blatta, — which, from his description, is evi- 

 dently the darkling- beetle {Blaps mortisaga, F.), and 

 which he recommends as an infallible nostrum, when 

 applied with oil extracted from the cedar, in othervk'ise 

 incurable ulcers, — that was an object of general dis- 

 gust on account of its ill scent, a character which it still 

 maintains^. — Numbers of the Carabidce (a kind of black 

 beetles that run very fast, and are found under stones, 

 and in places that have not a free circulation of air,) 

 exhale a most disagreeable and penetrating odour, 

 which De Geer observes resembles that of rancid 

 butter, and is not soon got rid of It is produced, he 

 say?, from an unctuous jnatter that transpires through 

 the body^; but I am rather inclined to think it pro- 

 ceeds from the extremity. — I have noticed that some 

 small beetles of the Omatium genus Grav. — for in- 

 stance O. rivulare, and another species that I once found 

 iii abundance on the primrose (O. JPrimulce, K. Ms.), 

 especially the latter — are abominably fetid when taken, 

 and that it requires more than one washing to fr,ee the 

 fingers from it. Every one knows that the cock-roach, 



* Iltst.Nat. Lxx'ix.cG. " iv. 86. 



