SANITARY OFFICERS 237 



An umbrella or collecting-net held beneath the 

 row of pigeons, hawks, owls, and stoats that the 

 gamekeeper has nailed up as a warning to the others, 

 whilst the victims are tapped smartly with a stick, 

 will yield many specimens. There will be Carrion 

 Beetles (Silpha), flat-backed creatures, mostly of a 

 dead-black hue ; Mimic Beetles (Hister), square- 

 backed, highly polished insects, that at once pre- 

 tend to be dead ; Bacon Beetles (Dermestes), very 

 convex, with a broad yellowish-grey band across 

 the middle of the black back ; and some of the 

 larger of the Rove Beetles (Stafbylinus), such as 

 Creopbilus maxillosus. 



Space will not allow us to give any detailed 

 description of the numerous beetles that are engaged 

 in this sanitary work, or of the ways by which they 

 carry it out. Some reference should be made, 

 however, to one of them, the Bacon Beetle (Dermestes 

 lardarius), because, as its popular name implies, it 

 sometimes comes very near home to some of us 

 in our houses, as well as attacking the " examples " 

 that swing from the keeper's gibbet. It is, indeed, 

 a general feeder on dead animal matter, and does 

 not mind how dry and old it is. After the other 

 beetles and their larvae think that they have ex- 

 tracted all the nourishment from the swinging 

 carcases, Dermestes can get meals for many a day 

 from the shrivelled skins and the tough ligaments 

 that the others have feared to spoil their jaws upon. 



Naturalists sometimes have unpleasant acquaint- 

 ance with this beetle, and find that some choice 



