( xxi ) 



plentiful. I may add that specimens which I had in captivity 

 refused fruits. 



" It will be needless to take up time by giving a catalogue uf 

 other gaily-coloured, yet carnivorous, Coleoptera. Yet I cannot 

 pass over Mr. Allen's assertion that ' first in the order of ugliness 

 must be placed the carrion feeders who live upon decaying bodies 

 or animal excrements.' Surely any one who is acquainted with the 

 great Neotropical genus Phanacus, all dung- and carrion-feeders, 

 or even with many species of Coprls, will strongly demur to this 

 assertion. Our common Geotrupes display on their under 

 surfaces rich shades of purples, deep blues, and golden greens. 



" Even the burying-beetles [Necrojjhar/us) display both in their 

 colours and in design a very close approach to certain Buprestldte, 

 such as several species of Stigmodera. Thus we see that extreme 

 difference of diet may coexist with approximate identity in colora- 

 tion, whilst, on the other hand, identity in diet may coexist with 

 the most complete difference in point of colour. 



"In the order Lepidoptera we find no purely carnivorous forms, 

 so that here the question cannot be discussed from this point of 

 view. At the same time it must not be forgotten that Vanessa 

 Atalanta and Apatura Iris and Clytie will sip the juices of a dead 

 rat or weasel as eagerly as those of the sweetest flower, and the 

 same is said of the tropical Papilios and Ornithoptera. 



" The Hymenoptera supply some very decisive evidence. Their 

 most splendidly-coloured family, the Chrysididce, of which the 

 common Chrysis ignita may serve as a familiar instance, are 

 decidedly carnivorous, and in their larval state parasitic. Nor do 

 they generally seek their food among flowers, since they pre- 

 ferentially haunt walls, rocks, sand-banks, and palings. 



"In the order Neuroptera we find beauty and purely carnivorous 

 habits very strikingly developed. Of the beauty of the Libellu- 

 lid(B and Agrionidoi every naturalist is well aware. I have never 

 seen or heard of any case of their feeding on fruits or seeking 

 for insects upon flowers or fruits. 



" Many of the Hemiptera are well known to have splendid 

 colours, but the information I have found as to their diet is not 

 sufficiently precise. 



" Thus, I think, that a general survey of the insect world 

 establishes our first proposition, that ' carnivorous insects are not 

 inferior in beauty to flower- and fruit-haunting groups. 



E 



