508 



B L A P S. 



animals; and especially such as feed upon putrescent 

 mutter, are almost universally slow in their motions. 

 There are, indeed, exceptions to this rule, especially 

 amongst such animals as are destitute of means of 

 defence, but in the beetles under consideration, we 

 observe security against the attacks of enemies in the 

 hardness of the covering of the body, and in the fioetid 

 odour produced by the emission of the fluid from the 

 extremity of the body. 



In Mr. Stephen's Works on British Entomology, 

 this family comprises only the two British genera 

 Misolampus and Slaps. This arrangement is formed 

 npon that of Dr. Leach, which was again taken frotn 

 the first edition of the. Regne Animal; but in the later 

 editions of that work, the family is considerably 

 extended, and embraces the greater part of Mr. 

 Stephen's second section of the family Tenebrionidte. 



According to the last mentioned edition, which is 

 indeed the latest authority upon the subject, the 

 genera are thus arranged : 



1. Elytra more or less acuminate. Tarsi not 

 dilated. 



1 (). Mentuin small, less simple or spined. 



Genera. Slaps, oxura, acauthomera, misolampus, 

 gonopus. 



1 (6). Mentuin very large ; thorax broadest in front, 

 or gradually dilated at the sides. 



Genus. Asida. 



2. Elytra not acuminate. Tarsi of the fore legs 

 more or less dilated in the males. 



Genera. Pedimis, opatrinus, dendarus, Phylan, 

 Heliophilus, eurynotus, isocerus, blapstinus, and 

 platyscelis. 



Of the genera recorded above, those only men- 

 tioned in italics are natives of Great Britain, miso- 

 lampus being of doubtful locality as such. Recurring 

 therefore to the first of these, blaps (Fabricius), which 

 includes by far the largest of the British species, we 

 find it at once distinguished, in addition to the charac- 

 ters given above, by the nearly square thorax, the 

 rather broad elytra, and the great length of the third 

 joint of the antennae. 



Blaps Mortisaga. 



These insect?, of which there are three British 

 species, are known by the name of the darkling, or 

 church-yard beetles, and it seems not improbable that 

 the latter circumstance has occasioned their appear- 

 ance to be regarded by the ignorant and superstiiious 

 a an evil omen. Liunanis informs us that this is the 

 case in Sweden. By tlie ancients, these insects 

 appear to h;ive been regarded as a speeies of blatta ; 

 indeed, Mouttet, who assiduously collected the learn- 

 ing of the ancients respecting insects, gives the blaps 

 morlisaga, and the male and female cockroach, as the 

 three species, of which the genus blatta wa- com- 



posed. Like the latter insects, the blaps was an object 

 of general disgust, on account of its ill scent, yet it 

 was recommended as an infallible nostrum when 

 applied with cedar oil, in incurable ulcer*. An 

 Egyptian species is, however, recorded to be in great 

 favour with the Turkish women, who eat it fried in 

 butter, for the purpose of making them fat, and also 

 to be applied as a remedy to alleviate pain in the ear, 

 and to cure the sting of the scorpions. For the former 

 purpose it also appears to have been applied even in 

 England, in the days of Moutfet. It is also recorded 

 by Mr. Baker, the celebrated microscopic observer, 

 respecting the blaps mortisaga.that he keptaspecimen 

 alive under a glass upwards of three years without 

 food (Phil. Trans. 1740). The faculty of sustaining 

 a long abstinence from all kinds of food, of which 

 numerous examples might be cited, is regarded by 

 Messrs. Kirby and Spence, as dependant in some 

 degree upon the nature of their food ; vegetable 

 feeders requiring a constant supply, whilst those 

 which are predaceous and exposed to the danger of 

 being long without food, are often endowed with the 

 powers of fasting to a remarkable degree. This argu- 

 ment is not, however, applicable to the case of the 

 darkling beetle, which, indeed, seems to be much 

 more easily accounted for upon the principles which 

 in another part of this celebrated work these authors 

 have mentioned, namely, that if by any circumstance 

 the union of insects is deferred beyond the ordinary 

 period, their lives may be protracted far beyond the 

 usual term, and hence that the grcul age to which 

 Mr. Baker's blaps attained, was owing to its being a 

 virgin when taken, and subsequently kept from any 

 sexual intercourse. A parallel case is stated by these 

 authors too amongst vegetables, where an annual plant, 

 if kept from seeding, will' become biennial, as likewise 

 if they are sown too late in the year to produce seeds. 

 But it is not alone in its powers of abstinence that its 

 tenacity of life was observed, for the same insect had 

 previously revived after be.ing immersed in spirits of 

 wine a whole night*. This circumstance may per- 

 haps enable us in some degree to account for an 

 extraordinary case reported in the Dublin Medical 

 Transactions of 18*24 1828, by Dr. Pickells, of Cork, 

 and which, from the number and competency of the 

 observers, there appears not to be the slightest reason 

 to doubt. For several years, a middle-aged female 

 continued to throw up incredible numbers of grubs, 

 chiefly of the blaps mortisaga and maggots of a dip- 

 terous insect. " Of the larvae of the beetle,'' says Dr. 

 Pickells, quoted in Insect Transformations, " I am 

 sure I considerably underrate when I say, that not 

 less than seven hundred have been thrown up from 

 the stomach at different times since the commence- 

 ment of my attendance. A great proportion were 

 destroyed by herself to avoid publicity, many too 

 escaped immediately by running into holes in the floor. 

 Upwards of ninety "were submitted to Dr. Thomson's 

 examination, nearly all of which, including two of the 

 specimens of the meal worm (tenebrio molitor) I saw 

 myself thrown up at different times." It apj tears that 

 this female had sometime previously, in the perform- 

 ance of a strange superstition, been in the daily habit 



* A similar circumstance, which occurred with a lady-bird 

 (coccinella), fortunately for Entomologists, induced Mr. Kirhy 

 to turn has attention to insects, and Mr. Curtis lias observed 

 the same fact after an immersion of twenty-four hours. II is to 

 he observed, that in both instances the insects possess the power 

 of secreting a very acrid liquid. 



