154 BEETLES 



and its body, legs, wing-sheaths and antennae are all as like 

 grass as they can possibly be. But here again is another kind, 

 whose body is equally imitative of dry grass, and so all parts of 

 it are just like the stalks or the blades of yellowish-brown grass, 

 dried up during the cold season. Even the eyes are imitative, 

 and exactly resemble a small brown seed, such as many grasses 

 bear. 



There are many species of beetles to be seen, although none 

 of them are very handsome or conspicuous. The most common 

 kind is a broad flat insect, about an inch long and dull dark 

 brown in colour, which crosses one's path at every step. Another 

 is seen chiefly on the bushes, a smaller insect, but bright shining 

 jet-black. Another, which appears as if it mimicked a wasp in 

 its habit of flight, is shot with brown and green, with very long 

 legs, and is constantly taking short flights or running rapidly. 

 Another one, but much more rare, has golden-green and metallic 

 tints on its wing-cases. But the insect which has puzzled us 

 most is one that I have seen on a large bush of Roimemy, a plant 

 with acacia-like leaves, with prickles along the leaf-stalks. 

 This beetle is about five-eighths of an inch long, and almost 

 hemispherical in shape. It is warm reddish-brown in colour, 

 with a line of black and then of yellow next the head, and is 

 perfectly flat below. These insects cluster closely, as thick as 

 they can lie, in groups of from a dozen to more than a hundred 

 together, all round the thicker stems, so that they look at a 

 little distance like strings of large brown beads ; and in some 

 of the topmost branches they form a continuous mass for two 

 or three feet. Amongst these shining brown insects are a few 

 others of quite a different colour and shape, perfectly flat, like a 

 minute tortoise, and of a uniform grey, exactly resembling the 

 lichen on the bark of the tree, and the edges of the carapace 

 scalloped. These grey insects are in the proportion of about 

 one to forty or fifty of the darker coloured ones. There are 

 also a few individuals of the same shape as the brown one, but 

 yellowish-green in colour. What these grey insects can be, and 

 what relation they bear to the much more numerous brown ones, 

 I cannot make out. 



Other insects, at first sight resembling beetles, are gaudily 

 coloured. Yonder is a bush which is conspicuous from some 

 little distance, from the quantity of insects clustered on it ; 



