84 A DEATH-DEFYING FOBM. 



laminated knobs, is an instrument furnished by nature to the 

 Stag-beetle for the purpose of keeping them in proper order. 

 This is a brush of golden-coloured hair near the base of the 

 fore leg, " evidently," says a close observer,* " for the purpose 

 of cleansing the antennae when rendered viscid by sap. The 

 insect has been noticed thus to employ this useful little 

 article, at all times ready to its hand. Like the majority of 

 his Beetle brethren, Lucanus Cervus is accustomed to keep 

 within covert during day, and take its flight about the hour 

 of sunset. Its appearance, when on wing, has been likened 

 to that of a flying duck in miniature. The wood of decaying 

 trees is the nursery wherein, as a grub or larva, this insect 

 forester passes the period of its infancy. "We have now a 

 Stag-beetle "set up" before us, and we are compelled, as we 

 look upon this insect giant (a dwarf though, in comparison 

 with some of his foreign relatives) to confess that he is a 

 wonderful and admirable creature. So solid so compact so 

 perfect so permanent ! he has nothing about him of insect 

 lightness and fragility. Armed, not merely "to the teeth" 

 but to the very eyes, in his encasing panoply of ebon hue and 

 ebon hardness, even death makes no impression on his 

 outward form; and the ten years' occupant of a collector's 

 cabinet shows as fresh and life-like, in all but motion, as a 

 really living specimen. The same qualities of perfection and 

 permanence (added in some species, as in our favourites of 



* Mr. Water-house, Entom. Mag. 



