32 



ROVE-BEETLES. 



kept, like leaf-lice, for the purpose of furnishing sweet food for 

 their captors, the owners of the nests. Some of them are en- 

 tirely blind, and most of them are taken care of by the ants, who 

 even feed them. They are of no economic importance. Fig. 

 30 shows one of these peculiar insects tended by ants in one of 

 their subterranean vaults. 



FAMILY ROVE-BEETLES. 



(Staphylinidae) . 



This is a very large family of small beetles with a very 

 elongated slender body and very short wing-covers (Fig. 31). 

 But notwithstanding the short elytra the beetles possess ample 



Fig. 31. — Different kinds of Staphylinidae. After Brehm. 



true wings. Some of the larger species, measuring more than 

 half an inch in length, assume a very threatening aspect when 

 closely approached with the finger. Their abdominal joints be- 

 ing very movable, they raise the last unarmed joints, which are 

 frequently of a contrasting color, being yellow or red, as if to 

 sting, and in this way they are well able to scare those that do 

 not know them from the wasps which they imitate. Nearly all 

 these beetles are beneficial, as they are scavengers, feeding upon 

 decaying animal and vegetable matter. 



