CHAPTER VI 

 BEETLES 



ONE of the common beetles of Sarawak is a little 

 blue Tiger-Beetle with red legs, Collyris marginata ; it 

 may be seen flying about in the sun and settling fre- 

 quently on the leaves of trees and shrubs. It is, like 

 the other members of the genus, more of an arboreal 

 than a terrestrial insect, and so differs from the great 

 majority of Tiger-Beetles, or Cicindelidce, which are 

 ground-beetles, running about on paths and open 

 spaces, and depositing their eggs in the ground. Here 

 the eggs hatch out, and the larvae form burrows in 

 which they lie in wait for their prey. The life-history 

 of Collyris emarginata is rather different, for the eggs 

 are laid in twigs of shrubs or trees, and in these the 

 larva forms its burrow. 



Dr. J. C. Koningsberger, of Buitenzorg, Java, was the 

 first to call attention to this interesting habit, 1 and 

 when I was at Buitenzorg in 1905 I saw in the 

 museum there a preparation illustrating the life-history 

 of the beetle, which at one time was rather a serious 

 pest to the planters of Java on account of the injury 

 done by the larvae to the young coffee-shoots. At the 



* Mededeelingen uit's lands Plantentuin (1901), XLIV. [See Note 

 13, P- 315]. 



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