24 OUR HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 



systematic arrangement of the insects. In our present 

 species the club consists of three flattened joints, 

 broadened inwardly only, whereby it acquires a one- 

 sided appearance. 



The legs are of moderate length, and are packed up 

 under the body when their owner counterfeits death, as 

 it very readily does on the slightest alarm, being, as 

 well becomes so inveterate a pilferer, of timid and retir- 

 ing habits. But this folding up is not so perfectly 

 carried out as in many other insects, for the last section 

 of the limbs, viz., the five- jointed tarsus, or foot, is not 

 folded back upon the preceding part, or tibia, but simply 

 brought up so as to make an angle with them. - t . 



The larva of Dermestes is something like a very hairy 

 caterpillar, and is no connection of those lively maggots 

 that also infest bacon, and whose acrobatic feats have 

 earned for them the name of " jumpers." It casts its 

 skin several times in the course of its life, and on 

 account of the multitude of hairs (which are shed with 

 the skin and renewed each time), the rejected vestment 

 does not shrivel up, but retains the form of the larva, 

 a very substantial ghost of its former self. 



We possess five British species of this genus, all of 

 which are essentially devourers of skins and dried 

 carcases; in fact, they are the jackals of the flesh flies, 

 coming round when the maggots of the latter have 

 finished up all the soft and juicy parts of a fresh carcase, 

 and clearing off the hard and dry remnants of the skin, 

 tendons, ligaments, &c., which their predecessors have 

 left untouched. This is their natural function in the 

 economy of nature, and when man also accumulates 

 stores of dried meats, skins, feathers, horns, and hoofs, 

 it is not to be wondered at that they forsake the scanty 

 and precarious provisions of dame Nature, and invade 



