THE PILL BEETLES. 105 



figured on Woodcut XI. Pig, /. Its colour is whitish-brown 

 above and white below, and it is profusely covered with long 

 hairs. The cast skins of these larvae may be seen abundantly 

 when the Beetle has taken ]3ossession of anyplace, and by them 

 the museum owner is often warned of the danger which has 

 come on his collection. The reader will see that, like many 

 other destructive insects, it is most valuable in its right place, 

 and does good service by removing from sight objects which 

 are not only unpleasant to the eye and nostril but injurious to 

 the health. In these places it should be protected and en- 

 couraged ; but when it makes ' -= ^ay into a house, extermina- 

 tion is the only course to be lu-'ed. 



We now come to the Byrrhidas or Pill Beetles, so called from 

 their roimded shape, and the manner in which they can hide 

 their limbs and antennjB when alarmed. There is no difficulty 

 in distinguishing Beetles belonging to this family. The an- 

 tennae are gradually thickened towards the extremity, and the 

 head is very small and deeply sunk in the thorax, with which it 

 can be completely retracted in most of the species. 



The machinery by which the legs are packed up is extraor- 

 dinary, and this alone would serve to indicate the family. On 

 the tibise there is a groove in which the tarsi are received when 

 doubled, the tibiae fold closely to the femora, and the whole leg, 

 thus reduced into a very small compass, is received into a 

 groove under the body. In fact, the legs are packed up very 

 much like the joints of a portable easel. The head being at 

 the same time withdrawn into the thorax, the antennse lie 

 pressed closely against its sides, so that when the Beetle has 

 thus packed away all its limbs, it does not bear the least re- 

 semblance to an insect. This mode of concealment, or rather 

 of evasion, is rendered more perfect by the fact, that the 

 surface of the body is covered with fine down, which retains 

 the dust of the roads on which it so often travels, and gives to 

 the Beetle the aspect of a little round dusty stone. And, so 

 pertinaciously does it keep this attitude when alarmed, that it 

 will suffer its limbs to be torn from its body rather than give 

 the least sign of life. 



The typical genus has the antennae rather flattened^ and 

 shorter than the thorax, the basal joint being large, the second 



