HYMENOPTEEA. 401 



culture of Limoges some stereotyped plates, composed, as is well 

 known, of a very hard alloy, formed of antimony and lead, which 

 had been pierced and riddled with holes by two specimens of a 

 Bostrichm. The holes were a seventh of an inch in diameter, by 

 two inches in depth. The stereotypes were thus perforated, although 

 they had been wrapped up in many folds of paper and cardboard. 

 As the printing served for the work called " Les Fastes Militaires 

 de la France/' one may say that the brave soldiers received 

 from an insect more wounds than their enemies had ever given 

 them. 



To prove that these insects have really the power to perforate 

 metals as others perforate and pass through woody matter, the 

 entomologist of Limoges made the following experiment. He 

 placed in a leaden box, whose sides were thin, a living specimen 

 of the Fire-coloured Lepture of Geoffrey (Callidium sanguineum), 

 a Coleopteron which is commonly found in houses in France in 

 winter, its larvae being developed in great numbers in firewood. 

 Above this box he fitted on another, also containing a specimen of 

 this insect, which he shut in with a third box. A few days after- 

 wards he separated the boxes. The middle one had been pierced 

 through, and the two insects were found together, the one which was 

 below having made a hole through which it might introduce itself 

 into the middle box. M. Du Boys made a chemical experiment 

 which enabled him to establish beyond a doubt that the insect 

 which had gnawed the metal had not made it serve as its food. 

 The dried body of one of these insects was analysed. After having 

 dissolved it in azotic acid it was completely burnt, and there could 

 not be found in the ashes taken up by the azotic acid the least 

 trace of lead. This experiment proves that these insects had for 

 their object only to escape from the galleries in which they were 

 accidentally deposited in their larva state, and that it was not 

 until they had undergone their complete transformation that they 

 endeavoured to gain their liberty. Observations of the same kind 

 were multiplied after the Report of M. Dumeril. The Academic 

 des Sciences received, in the month of June, 1861, two Memoirs 

 one from M. Heriot, captain of artillery; the other from 

 M. Bouteille, curator of the Museum of Natural History of Gre- 

 noble containing many new observations on the perforation by 



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