258 MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



defence. Take one of the common chafers or dung- 

 beetles (Scarahceus stercororius, L., or Copris lunaris, 

 F.) into your hand, and observe how he makes his 

 way in spite of your utmost pressure ; and read the ac- 

 counts which authors have left us of the very great 

 weights that a flea will easily move, as if a single man 

 should draw a waggon with forty or fifty hundred 

 weight of hay : — but upon this I shall touch hereafter, 

 and therefore only hint at it now. 



We are next to consider the modes o^ concealment to 

 which insects have recourse in order to escape the ob- 

 servation of their enemies. One is by covering them- 

 selves with various substances. Of this description is 

 a little water-beetle (Elophorus aquaticus, F.), which 

 is always found covered with mud, and so when feed-, 

 jng at the bottom of a pool or pond can scarcely be di- 

 stinguished, by the predaceous aquatic insects, from 

 the soil on which it rests. Another very minute insect 

 of the same order (Limniuscenens, Miill. Elmis, Latr.) 

 that is found in rivulets under stones and the like, 

 sometimes conceals its elytra with a thick coating of 

 mud, that becomes nearly as hard as stone. I never 

 met with these animals so circumstanced but once ; 

 then, however, there were several which had thus de- 

 fended themselves, and I can now show you a speci- 

 men. — We have two species of a minute coleopterous 

 genus (&Vorj/55ws) lately established, one of which {G. 

 arenifera, K.) living in wet spots where the toad-rush 

 {J uncus bufonius, L.) grows, covers itself with sand ; 

 and another (G. cretifcra, K.) which frequents chalk, 

 whitens itself all over with that substance. As this 

 animal, when clean, is very black, were it not for this 



