CHAPTEK II. 



CLUB-HORN BEETLES. 



WE now turn to another family of beetles, the Derme- 

 stidcB, q, group of small extent, but of most destructive 

 habits. ' One of them has rendered itself sufficiently 

 obnoxious to have acquired a popular name, the " Bacon 

 Beetle," a designation which indicates not a necessary 

 association, but merely a casual one, which, however, 

 has, more than any other, brought the insect under 

 the notice and reprobation of human kind. In scientific 

 language it is still called by the name under which the 

 great Linne wrote of it in his " Systema Naturae," viz., 

 Dermestes lardarius, the second word of which is an 

 almost literal translation of 

 the popular name. The gene- 

 ric title Dermestes is from the 

 Greek derma, a skin, and in- 

 dicates that the tastes of the 

 insect lie, not only in the 

 direction of fat bacon, but 

 equally in that of tough 

 leather. 



It is a parallel -sided convex 

 rather elongate insect, about 



one-fourth inch long (Fig. 10), and may be at once 

 recognised by the yellowish-grey band which sweeps 

 right across the elytra, occupying almost the whole of 



FIG. 10. Dermestes'lardarius. 



