9 4 COLEOPTERA. 



of anything that might pollute the air. Urged by a remarkable instinct, no 

 sooner do they find the carcase of a bird, a mouse, a frog, a mole, or any other 

 small animal, than they glide beneath it, and proceed to dig away the earth 

 until they make a grave for its reception ; having accomplished this, they lay 

 their eggs upon the buried body, and covering up the little sepulchre, depart. 

 When the eggs are hatched, the larvae, furnished with strong jaws, devour the 

 carcase which supplies their food. When about to assume the nymph con- 

 dition, they bury themselves still more deeply in the earth, and there construct 

 a chamber lined with a tenacious slime, in which they undergo their final 

 change. 



Other races, still faithful to their duty, eagerly attack whatever 

 they can find that is bereft of life. 



The Bacon Beetles (Dermestes lardarius) even invade our larders to 

 regale on rancid hams or bacon ; furs, woollen stuffs, the skins of birds, the 

 treasured specimens in our museums, all become their prey they make no 

 nice distinctions. What is dead they claim, and do not wait for man's per- 

 mission. 



The fifth tribe of Coleopterous Pentamerans includes the Palpi- 

 cornes, which, although nearly related to the preceding, are 

 principally aquatic in their habits. 



The Large "Water-Beetles (HydropJiilus) * belong to this group. They 

 swim and fly equally well, but walk upon the ground with difficulty. Their 

 breast is armed with a sharp spine, a weapon that occasionally lacerates the 

 hand of those who handle them incautiously. The females are provided with 

 two spinnarets with which they form an oval cocoon, wherein their eggs are 

 arranged with much regularity, packed up in a kind of white down. These 

 cocoons may sometimes be observed floating upon ponds. Their larva differs 

 widely in its structure from that of the Dyticus, with which these insects were 

 long confounded : it is provided with a horny head, which it is able to turn 

 back over its body, a faculty that permits it to use its back as a kind of table 

 whereon it cracks the shells of little water-snails that constitute its usual food. 

 In some species the females carry their eggs in a silken bag attached to their 

 abdomen. 



The sixth and last tribe of the Coleopterous Pentamerans is that 

 of the Lamellicornes, t distinguished by having their antennae 

 terminated by a packet of narrow flat plates or lamella*, arranged 

 like the rays of a fan or the leaves of a book. They all live upon 

 vegetable substances, and some are of large size ; their bodies 

 are massive, their flight slow, and their gait heavy and tortoise- 

 like. 



Their larvae are so fat and clumsy that they are unable to walk, 

 or do so with difficulty. They lie upon their sides and devour the 

 vegetation that immediately surrounds them (Fig. 82), and some 

 of them live in this state for three or four years. They pass their 



* u5w/>, uclor, water; 0iXos, philos, loving, t Lamella, a leaf; cornu, a horn or antenna. 



