COLEOPTERA. 



507 



Another genus of this family is Meloe, with very short elytra, and 

 without wings. They walk slowly and with difficulty on low plants, 

 the female dragging along an enormous abdomen filled with eggs. 

 They are generally observed in spring. In Germany they give them 

 the name of Maiwurm (Mayworm). Their succulence would expose 

 them, without doubt, to the voracity of birds and of insect-eating 

 Mammifers if they had not the power of exuding at will, in the 

 moment of danger, from all their articulations, an unctuous humour 



Fig. 545. Sitaris humeralis. 



Fig. 546. First larva of Sitaris humeralis 

 (magnified). 



of a reddish-yellow colour, the odour and probably also the caustic 

 properties of which repel the aggressor. The females lay their eggs 

 underground, and out of these come forth larvae of a strange shape. 

 Swallowed by cattle, they cause them to swell and die. It is for this 

 reason that Latreille has given it as his opinion that these insects are 

 the Buprestis of the ancients, of which the law of Cornelius speaks, 

 " Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis." But the name of Buprestis 

 was applied by Linnaeus to a genus of which we shall treat farther 

 on, and it has been generally adopted by naturalists. 



The commonest among the Meloes is the Meloe proscarabceus, 

 which is to be found in abundance, in the month of April, in the 

 meadows near the bridge of Ivry in the environs of Paris. The 

 metamorphoses of the insects of this family had remained for a long 



