A LONG IMPRISONMENT. 140 



The insect was said to have a very powerful odour, to be of a 

 greenish gold colour, to be long in the body, and to have long 

 antenna?. Putting all these descriptions together, there is little 

 doubt that the Buprestis of the ancients was nothing more or 

 less than the Cantharis, or Spanish Fly, and that the insects 

 which we scientifically call Buprestidse have nothing in common 

 with the Buprestis except its name, which they have wrong- 

 fully usurped. 



As to its manners and customs, it was a very curious Beetle 

 indeed. According to De Mouffet, " It feedeth on flies, cankers, 

 worms, and other the like insects, provided she kill them in 

 fight, for those that dye of themselves, or are killed by others, 

 she will not touch : when she hath filled herself with the car- 

 kasses of the slain, what she leaves she drawes into her hole, and 

 when she is hungry again feeds on them. A great foe to the 

 Beetle and the Lizard, aiming at their bellies (as being the softer 

 and more penetrable part), which presently she gnaws through ; 

 and when she fears to be overcome or caught, presently she 

 retreats and hides herself. 



" Other savage qualities of this little creature let Peter Turner 

 and William Brewer (physicians for learning and integrity of 

 conversation second to none) relate, who, together with Pennius 

 at Heidelberg, did observe its life and manners." 



The larvae of the Buprestidse are wood-eaters, the eggs being 

 laid in the chinks of tree-bark. In order to aid her in placing 

 her eggs properly, the last segments of the abdomen are in the 

 female formed into an ovipositor, with which she can push the egg 

 into very narrow crevices. In consequence of this arrangement, 

 when the insect is viewed on the under surface it seems to have 

 only five segments to the abdomen, all the others being internal. 



One of these Beetles passed a most singularly lengthened life. 

 A fir-plank was brought from the Baltic, made into a desk, and 

 then placed in a London office. For twenty years the desk 

 stood like any other desk, but at the expiration of that time a 

 living Buprestis splendens was discovered in the act of extri- 

 cating itself from the desk. In order to discover the position 

 which the insect had occupied, the upper part of the plank was 

 planed away, and then the track of the larva was laid open. 

 Whether the twenty years had been passed as egg, larva, pupa, 

 or perfect insect, is unknown. Most probably it was in the 



