i;o COMMON BRITISH INSECTS. 



well developed. The genus Pselaphus, of which 

 there are only two British species, has the antennae, 

 palpi, and legs very long. The commonest species, 

 Pselaphus Heisei, which is represented herewith, is 

 shining yellow-brown, has its body very flat and wide, 

 and on each side of the suture of the elytra there is 

 a stria which runs from the base to the tip. It can 

 be shaken out of moss, as can its very rare congener 

 PselapJms Dresdenensis^ which may be distinguished 

 by its dark colour and a semicircular impression at 

 the base of the thorax. 



THE last example of the British Beetles is, 

 perhaps, the strangest of all our native insects, and 

 how it can find any gratification in existence is not 

 easy to see. We feel that the life of a blind and 

 deaf man is a hard one, shut out as he is from free 

 intercourse with his fellow-creatures, and incapable of 

 enjoying, or even of comprehending, the common 

 blessings of sight and hearing. Yet he is capable of 

 one kind of animal enjoyment, for he can eat, and 

 indeed upon this capability is based the course of 

 instruction by which such afflicted persons have been 

 rescued from their wretched isolation, and taught to 

 interchange ideas with their fellow-men. But, sup- 

 posing that a man who was incapable of sight or hear- 

 ing were also found without a mouth, and yet 

 possessing the power of living without food, we should 

 think that such a being must have reached the very 

 abyss of misery a misery beyond all power of alle- 

 viation. 



