The Life of the Fly 



wise choice, the epicure ! This popular fungus 

 is one of our best mushrooms, despite its 

 colour of a doubtful white, its skin which is 

 often wrinkled and its gills soiled with rusty 

 brown at the spores. We must not judge peo- 

 ple by appearances, nor mushrooms either. 

 This one, magnificent in shape and colour, is 

 poisonous; that other, so poor to look at, Is 

 excellent. 



Here are two more specialist Beetles, both 

 of small size. One is the Triplax ( Triplax 

 russica, LIN.), who has an orange head and 

 corselet and black wing-cases. His grub 

 tackles the hispid polyporus {Polyporus his- 

 pidus, BULL.), a coarse and substantial dish, 

 bristling at its top with stiff hairs and clinging 

 by its side to the old trunks of mulberry-trees, 

 sometimes also of walnut- and elm-trees. The 

 other is the cinnamon-coloured Anisotoma 

 (Anisotoma cinnamomea, PANZ.) . His larva 

 lives exclusively In truffles. 



The most interesting of the mushroom-eat- 

 ing Beetles is the Bolboceras {Bolboceras gal- 

 lictis, MUL.). I have described elsewhere^ his 

 manner of living, his little song that sounds 

 like the chirping of a bird, his perpendicular 



^In an essay not yet published in English. — Translator's 

 Note. 



404 



