152 ANIMAL LIFE IN DESERTS 



the midday sun, but retreat under stones at night 

 and during cold weather. ^ As these insects are so 

 numerous and so visible one naturally wonders how 

 they protect themselves from insect-eating birds 

 and lizards. It appears probable that they are to 

 some extent saved from destruction by their size 

 and their hardness : this is an inadequate protection, 

 for the late G. Storey shot a young black and white 

 Wheatear (species ?) in Wadi Hof, near Cairo, and 

 found that it was stuffed with Adesmia, and Radde 

 recorded long ago that the Red-footed Falcon 

 {Falco vespertinus) eats Blaps and PimeHa on the 

 Simferopol Steppes in April. 



The anomaly of the black colour and diurnal 

 habits of these insects is heightened by the fact that 

 some desert Tenebrionidse are dull brown, others are 

 black and hairy, but they cover themselves with an 

 earthy or dusty coating which is difficult to remove ; 

 these inconspicuous Tenebrionidae are nocturnal 

 insects, and it is difficult to see that their camouflage 

 is of value to them. 



Black members of the Chafer family of Beetles, 

 among them the famiUar " Scarab " of Egypt and 

 other countries along the Mediterranean Httoral, 

 occur in many places in the Great Palaearctic Desert, 

 but they are neither so common nor so character- 

 istic as the Tenebrionidae. Among the flies there are 

 several species of Bombyhidse in the Great Palse- 

 arctic Desert, which are black, or predominantly 

 black. Fig. 43 shows a member of (a) the Bom- 



^ This statement is probably true of all species of Adesmia 

 and of many Pimelise (e.g. P. angulata, Fig. 42) : other members 

 of the genus are nocturnal. 



