COLEOPTERA. 44^ 



formerly common in the environs of Paris, but which, now-a-days, 

 cannot be found nearer than Fontainebleau. One must look for 

 them in earth which fills up the cavity of old willows or of pear trees. 

 The smell of Russia leather, or of plum, which it exhales, has caused 

 it to be called, in some places, the Plum-tree Beetle. 



The Gnorimus nobilis much resembles the rose beetle, and is 

 found on elder flowers, the whiteness of which this golden insect 

 relieves. One species, much smaller, only one or two lines long, is the 

 Valgus hemiptenis^ which is often met with in spring, in the dust of 

 the roads. The female has a long auger, which enables it to deposit 

 its eggs in rotten wood. Dumeril has described at length the singular 

 movements of this little insect: — The jerking and, as it were, 

 convulsive, movements by which it transports itself from one place to 

 another ; its tottering attitude, resulting from the excessive length of 

 its hind legs ; the vertical carriage of these, which, by their singular 

 direction, interfere much with the walking, which is directed by the 

 other legs. One should, above all, notice the artifice which the 

 Valgus employs, as indeed do many Coleoptera, to escape from his 

 persecutors, by counterfeiting death. As soon as it is seized by any 

 enemy, its members stiffen and become motionless. The body, 

 abandoned to itself, lies unevenly on whatever side it falls, for its legs 

 no longer bend ; if you bend them over, they remain in the inclination 

 given to them. Nothing then betrays life in this little dry and 

 slender being, frozen with fear, and imitating death, without, perhaps, 

 being aware itself of what it is doing. 



We must still further mention here the Licas — beautiful insects 

 of the same group, which are met with in South America, and whose 

 males have an extraordinary head. They fly during the day round 

 the great trees on which they live. Fig. 431 represents the Inca 

 dathrata. 



The most commonly-known insect of the family with which we 

 are now occupied is the cockchafer. The French word for cock- 

 chafer, hanneton, according to M. Mulsant, comes from the Latin, 

 alitonus {i.e., having sonorous wings), which first became hallefon. 

 Linn?eus gave them first the name o^ Melolontha, which they probably 

 had among the Greeks, and which seems to be the case from this 

 passage in Aristophanes, in his comedy of "The Clouds:" — "Let 

 your spirit soar," says the Greek author, " let it fly whither it lists, 

 like the Melolontha tied with a thread by the leg." We see that the 

 ! habit of martyrising cockchafers is of very early date. The Common 

 i Cockchafer (Fig. 432) is one of the greatest pests to agriculture. In 

 ^1 its perfect state it devours the leaves of many trees, principally those 



