446 THE INSECT WORLD. 



under the rather quaint name of the " Livree d'Ancre," because 

 the Marquis of Ancre made his servants wear yellow coats, bor- 

 dered by braid alternately crossed with green and yellow. 



The Osmoderma eremita is a large insect, of purple colour, 

 formerly common in the environs of Paris, and which, now-a- 

 days, cannot be found nearer than Fontainbleau. One must 

 look for them in earth which fills up the cavity of old willows 

 or of pear-trees. The smell of Russia leather or of plum which it 

 exhales has caused it to be called, in some places, the Plum- 

 tree beetle. 



The Gnorimus nobilis much resembles the Rose beetle, and is 

 found on elder flowers, whose whiteness this golden insect relieves. 

 One species, much smaller, only one or two lines long, is the 

 Valgus hemipterus, which one often meets with in spring, in the 

 dust of the roads. The female has a long auger, which enables it 

 to deposit its eggs in rotten wood. Dumeril has described at 

 length the singular movements of this little insect: The jerking 

 and, as it were, convulsive movements by which it transports itself 

 from one place to another ; its tottering attitude, resulting from 

 the excessive length of its hind legs ; the vertical carriage of 

 these, which by their singular direction, interfere much less with 

 the walking, which is directed by the other legSi One should, above 

 all, notice the artifice which the Valgus employs, as indeed do 

 many Coleoptera, to escape from his persecutors, by counterfeiting 

 death. As soon as it is seized by any enemy, its members stiffen 

 and become motionless. The body, abandoned to itself, lies un- 

 evenly on whatever side it falls, for its legs no longer bend ; if 

 you bend them over, they remain in the inclination given to 

 them. Nothing then betrays life in this little dry and slender 

 being, frozen with fear, and imitating death, without perhaps 

 being aware itself of what it is doing. 



We must still further mention here the Incas beautiful insects 

 of the same group, which are met with in South America, and 

 whose males have an extraordinary head. They fly during the 

 day round the great trees on which they live. Fig. 4ol repre- 

 sents the Inca clathrata. 



The most commonly known insect of the family with which we 

 are now occupied, is the Cockchafer. The French word for 



