A VALUABLE CAPTURE. 



33 



Its limbs, together with its mode of walking, strengthen the 

 idea ; for instead of being, as most of the Ground Beetles are, 

 quick, brisk, and active, it is slow and sluggish, crawling rather 

 than running, even when it finds itself in danger. 



Fig. 10.— Damaster blaptoides. 



(Dull black.) 



The following lively description of the capture of a Damaster 

 is taken from Mr. Fortune's " Visits to Japan and China." It is 

 part of a letter addressed from Dr. Adams to Mr. Fortune : — 



" I was walking solitarily — for all hands had gone on board 

 to dinner — along the shell-strewn strand of Taleu-Sima, a jolly 

 little island, not far from the shores of Niphon — walking along 

 in a brown study, smoking a little clay cutty-pipe, and thinking 

 chiefly of the contempt in which I should be held if some of my 

 ' very particular' friends saw me in this very disreputable ' rig,' 

 for my neck was bare, and. my coat was an old blue serge ; and. 

 as for my hat, it was brown felt, and I must say ' a shocking bad 

 one.' However, the sun was bright, the clear blue rippling sea 

 was calm, the little island was clear and verdurous, and I 

 smoked, serenely. On a sudden my abstract downward gaze 

 encountered a grotesque Coleopteron, in a suit of black, stalking 

 slowly and deliberately among the drift-wood at my feet — step- 

 ping cautiously over the spillacan twigs. At once I knew my 

 Coleopterous friend to be Damaster blaptoides; for although 



D 



