20 OUR HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 



body beneath is seen to be highly polished, and of a 

 deep chestnut colour. 



To return to our spider-like trio : the first we have 



FIG. 7. Scales of Nip tus. FIG. 8. Mezium affine. 



already considered ; the second, Mezium affine (Fig. 8), 

 is even more spider- like than its predecessor. Unlike 

 Niptus, however, it is clothed with hairs only on the 

 head and thorax. Its elytra are perfectly bare, of a 

 chestnut-brown colour, brilliantly shining, and extremely 

 globular, very much like what those of Niptus would be 

 if denuded of their scales. The head and thorax are 

 covered with yellowish- white hairs, so thickly disposed 

 that one might imagine the creature was of an asth- 

 matic temperament, and so needed to protect itself by 

 wrapping its upper regions in a great woollen muffler 

 or comforter. 



This is not nearly so common an insect as the last, 

 but it is equally varied in its tastes. An old opera-hat, 

 which had been laid aside for some time, once nourished 

 a considerable colony; and it has also been found 

 inside the carcase of another beetle, the greater part 

 of whose contents its larva had devoured. The creature 

 had passed through the whole .of its changes in these 

 contracted quarters, the larva having formed there 

 a silken cocoon intermixed with particles of its own 

 excrement. 



The third member of our little party is Gibbium scotias 

 (the hump-backed lover of darkness) (Fig. 9). It is much 



