122 BEETLES OF SINGULAR FORM. 



totally unrelieved by those tints of green, and blue, and violet, 

 or even brown, which, in most others of its tribe, serve to 

 enliven their prevailing sombre hue. In form, this haunter of 

 cemeteries is rather long and slender, both the body and the 

 wing-cases, by which it is quite covered, terminating in a 

 tapered point. The antennae are jointed in their whole length, 

 but are destitute at their extremities of foliated knobs. 



The churchyard beetle is an inhabitant of cellars as well as 

 cemeteries, also of underground kitchens and other dark damp 

 places. With all its associations of mortality, this insect is 

 remarkable for length and tenacity of life. One was found to 

 survive three years of " total abstinence " from food; another, 

 a whole night's intoxication at least, immersion in vinous 

 spirits. Connecting this strange vitality (paralleled only in 

 the insect world) with its gloomy resorts and ghoul-like habits, 

 one can hardly wonder that the beetle of the churchyard 

 should have been held by the observant ignorant as an object 

 of dread as well as detestation. 



Amongst beetle families of Scarabaean habits, are several 

 foreigners of gigantic size, and of forms remarkable for various 

 horn-like excrescences ; and some of the like peculiarities on 

 a smaller scale are observable in a few of our own dung-fre- 

 quenting Coleoptera. Of these, one* exhibits a recurved horn 

 projecting from the centre of its shield ; while the forehead 

 of another is adorned with a pair of cornuted appendages 



* Copris 



