OMASEUS ATERRIMUS. 235 



the smell ; but I was not before aware that any of 

 them had the means of ejecting this, or any similar 

 liquid, from behind, much less with the force exerted 

 in the above instance. Perhaps this last may be a 

 peculiar substance, of a different quality from the 

 first, secreted in less abundance, and offering a mode 

 of defence only resorted to under particular circum- 

 stances, or in the failure of those means of escape 

 which the insect more ordinarily adopts.* 



OMASEUS ATERRIMUS.f 



IN the year 1826, this local insect occurred, in 

 the month of April, in considerable plenty in Bot- 

 tisham Fen. Specimens continued to be observed 

 till the middle of June. Since then, however, I 

 have but rarely noticed it. All those I found were 

 observed crawling on the bare and wet mud at the 

 edges of the turf-pits. Some were basking in the 

 sun, in a state of quiescence, and were not imme- 

 diately obvious ; but by stamping on the ground 

 with the foot, which gave a tremor to the loose, 



* Since writing the above, I find a notice of this habit of the 

 Carabida by Mr. Holme, in The Zoologist, p. 339. 



He says, " I never saw, in any English work on Natural His- 

 tory, any notice of the power possessed by the Carabi of ejecting 

 an acrid fluid a posteriori with considerable force to a distance of 

 six or eight inches, and generally so well directed as to strike the 

 captor in the eye. This has not escaped the notice of the Con- 

 tinental entomologists, and the incident quoted by Kirby and 

 Spence (vol. ii. p. 244, 5th edit.) is probably referable to it." 



t Steph. Man. p. 32. This insect is figured in Curtis's British 

 Entomology, pi. xv. 



