THE INSECTS. 305 



' why, that must be a hopper.' Then he made a rush at 

 him, seized him by the throat, and was making off, when I 

 again interrupted him. Then he threw him down in dis- 

 gust, and started off at full speed towards the hedge. I 

 did not think it necessary to arrest him, but I considered 

 it only an act of mercy to end what seemed to me the very 

 painful, though it may have been pleasurable, but certainly 

 dying struggles of the poor hopper, by smashing the little 

 life that was left in him into nothing with my boot. The 

 performer in this small tragedy used to be called, when I 

 was a country boy, ' The Devil's Coach-Horsey and I know 

 of no other or more appropriate name for him. Scientific- 

 ally I believe he is known as Staphylinus (Ocypus) olens. 



" I wonder how he first got hold of the springy and active 

 hopper : probably caught him napping, and then his first 

 operation was to ham-string him with his powerful man- 

 dibles ; the rest was easy enough." 



As regards the scientific name, Westwood, " Entomologist's 

 Text-book," gives that of Gcerius olens ; Newman, " History 

 of Insects," Staphylinus. ''Those beetles," he says, "are 

 distinguished from all others by their square, short, fore- 

 wings, naked body, elongate form, and disgusting manner 

 of turning up the tail like a scorpion. It devours all 

 putrefying substances, as well as living insects." 



Stephens places Ocypus as a distinct genus, and as being 

 much smaller; less rapacious than Gcerius, and inhabiting 

 sandy heaths, and having curved simple mandibles alike in 

 both, instead of being dissimilar, as in Gcerius. 



We must not omit to mention one of the Coleoptera, 

 which, coming out only in the evening, often startles us 

 with its loud hum as it rushes by to bury itself in some 

 mass of dung or carrion. This is the COMMON DOR- 

 BEETLE (Geotropus stercorarius), the shardborne beetle of 

 Shakespeare : 



" Ere the bat hath flown 



His cloistered flight ; ere to black Hecate's summons 

 The shardborne beetle, with his drowsy hums, 

 Hath rung night's yawning peal !" 



Macbeth, Act iii. sc. 2. 

 U 



