REMARKABLE ANTENNA. 73 



have been taken in various localities. Some, which were 

 captured at Sierra Leone, were caught within houses at night. 

 They had been evidently concealed in the ceiling, and when 

 the candles were introduced they fell on the table and so were 

 taken. Some species have been found in ants' nests, and others 

 under dry patches of cowdung and beneath the bark of trees. 



As to their habits little is known. Like most of the Rypo- 

 phagous Beetles, they can fly well ; and several species, found 

 in the Moluccas, the Sunda Islands, and Senegal, have been 

 observed to possess an explosive power like that of the Bom- 

 bardier Beetles, which have already been described. Another 

 curious property is thus described by Mr. Westwood : — 



"Afzelius also states that on looking at one of Ins specimens 

 of Paussus sphceroccrus (remarkable for the globular, glossy, and 

 pale-coloured club of its antennae) in the evening, and happen- 

 ing to stand between the light and the box in which it was 

 enclosed, so that his shadow fell upon the insect, he observed, 

 to his great astonishment, the globes of the antennae, like two 

 lanthorns, spreading a dim phosphoric light. He adds, how- 

 ever, that he was prevented from ascertaining the fact by 

 reiterated experiments, as his specimen died. May not the 

 reflected light falling upon the semi-pellucid livid-coloured balls 

 of the antennas, give them the described appearances ? Or may 

 it not be accounted for precisely in the same manner as the light 

 emitted by the shining moss mentioned in Loudon's Magazine 

 of Natural History, No. XV. p. 463, by the late Mr. Bowman?" 



On looking at a number of the Paussidae, the observer is at 

 once struck with the enormous comparative size and strange 

 shape of the antennae, which are as characteristic of these 

 Beetles as is the proboscis of the elephant, the horn of the stag, 

 or the long neck of the giraffe. Some antennae look as if they 

 were made of a number of flat discs strung together. A similar 

 structure may be seen in some of our Bove Beetles, except that 

 in them the discs are further apart. Some have their antennas 

 composed apparently of only two joints, one very large joint at 

 the end and a very small joint next the head. The terminal 

 joint takes all kinds of forms. Sometimes it is globular, some- 

 times pear-shaped, and sometimes nearly flat. Several species 

 have the antennae looking exactly as if a pair of bill-hooks had 

 been stuck on the head, the points outwards ; while others have 



