SOLDIERS AND SAILORS. 137 



conical fleshy lobes along the sides, and two rows of hairy 

 [lunches on its back. At the end of the tail is a forked lobe, 

 which, like the similar part of the glow-worm larva, is used as 

 a means of locomotion. It is by these lobes and bunches that 

 the larva is enabled to force its way into the snails on which it 

 feeds. This larva is but seldom seen, as it lives throughout its 

 entire larval and pujDal existence within the shell of the snail, 

 and the skin, which it casts preparatory to changing into the 

 pupal state, exactly iills up the entrance of the shell. 



The male Beetle is widely spread over England, but is 

 seldom captured except by skilled insect-hunters, while the 

 female is so rare that many entomologists, who have taken the 

 male Drilus repeatedly, have never even seen the female. 



The following account of the oa^Dture of one of these Beetles 

 is given by Mr. E. C. Eye : — ' I once took, at the base of Shak- 

 speare's Cliff, a full-grown female larva, running rapidly in the 

 hot sunshine among snail-shells. It was more than half an 

 inch long ; flat, narrow, but rather widening behind ; with a 

 flat head, armed with two sharp and rather widely-separated 

 mandibles ; six moderately long anterior legs, ten thin tubercles 

 on each side of the fourth and following segments, gradually 

 getting longer, and clothed with stout brown bristles ; and two 

 longer elevated protuberances, also set with long hairs on the 

 upper side, with an oval elongation beneath, on the last seg- 

 ment. It was nearly the colour of raw sienna, and had a 

 widening row of black spots on each side, beginning on the 

 thorax.' 



There is but one British species of this genus. 



The family of the Telephoridse comes next in order. These 

 insects have long and very soft elytra, which often do not cover 

 the whole of the abdomen. The head is not hidden under the 

 thorax, and both the antennae and the palpi are slender. The 

 various species are very plentiful, especially on the flowers of 

 umbelliferous plants, and are popularly known as Soldiers and 

 Sailors — the red species being called by the former name, and 

 the blue species by the latter. 



One of these Beetles, called Telephorus fuscus, is shoA\Ti on 

 Woodcut XIV. Fig. 2. In this genus the elytra reach to th '■ 

 end of the abdomen, and the thorax is aot notched. Soft- 



