CHAFERS AND CLOCKS 219 



to be felled and broken up in order to give room for their 

 successors, and all the life which they in their turn support. 

 On the whole the varied appetites of beetles are useful 

 to man ; but certain beetles become great pests, usually 

 owing to the specialisation of man's interests in directions 

 which they cannot be expected to understand. Furs, for 

 example, to the dermestes-beetles are simply animal remains, 

 and it is their natural function to destroy them. The same 

 is true of bacon and cheese, which are attacked by beetles 

 of the same family. The death-watch beetle lives by de- 

 stroying dead wood ; he does not know that we regard it 

 as valuable furniture. The notorious Colorado beetle wins 

 detestation and renders itself liable to rigorous punishment 

 by devouring potato plants, but no one would object if it 

 selected instead the poisonous members of the potato's 

 family. Weevils also bear a hated name, but many of the 

 species are unobjectionable browsers on wild plants. 



The stag-beetle is the largest British beetle, and one 

 of the largest in Europe, though it is outstripped by the 

 monsters of the tropics. Its 'horns' are forked extensions 

 of its massive jaws, and have apparently no special use, 

 except to add more power to the jaw by their weight. If 

 the stag-beetle were a common insect, it would be almost 

 too noisy for our quiet English woods. It is as insistent 

 to the ear as a hornet when it takes to wing, and it is 

 always a striking event of a midsummer day to see it come 

 sailing round the crown of an oak with the heavy steadiness 

 of an aeroplane. Its inordinate pomp of noise, and black 

 horns stuck abroad, give it as grotesque an air as the 

 flight of the purple emperor round the same boughs is light 

 and graceful. 



Beetles are in fact not eminent fliers, though most of 

 them can get from place to place well enough at a pinch. 



