CLICK BEETLES. 127 



This apparatus is shown on Woodcut XIII. P'ig. d, wliich 

 represents the under side of the thorax. The mucro is seen in 

 the middle, as it appears when its point is lifted out of the 

 hollow, and the two dark lines above represent the grooves 

 in which the antennoe lie in order to protect them from the 

 shock of the fall. The spring is always accompanied ■with a 

 slight but sharp clicking sound, from which these insects have 

 derived the name of Click Beetles. There is an absolute 

 necessity for this curious provision of nature. The Click 

 Beetles are all feeble, slow, and defenceless, and their only 

 way of escaping from an enemy is by loosening their hold of the 

 herbage on which they are crawling, and allowing themselves 

 to drop to tlie ground. The sweep-net is very useful in catch- 

 ing these Beetles, as it anticijDates the movement, and captures 

 them as they fall. 



If put on a plate or other hard svibstance, the insect will 

 jimip a surprising height. On a very smooth surface like that 

 of a plate, the legs can take no hold as the insect falls, and it 

 generally rolls over on its back again. It instantly repeats 

 the jump, and again failing to secure a liold, seems to get into 

 a passion, leaping seven or eight times in rapid succession, and 

 then to turn sulky, lying on its back without moving a limb. 

 These insects have large wings, and are able to use them well, 

 though without much power of directing their course. They 

 always fly with the head well upwards and the body drooping 

 downwards, and are so slow that they can be captured easily by 

 hand. They have an ingenious habit of flying to some upright 

 green stem, clinging to it just below the seed-vessels, and 

 quickly closing their wings ; so that, even when the spot where 

 they alighted has been observed, it is no easy matter to see 

 them. 



"We will now proceed to describe one or two typical examples 

 of this group. The first family, the Buprestidae, is known by 

 the short serrated antennae, the hinder angles of the thorax, 

 which are not produced backward into spines, and by the manner 

 in which the prothorax sits so closely against the base of the 

 elytra that there is no power of leaping. Thus, in one sense, 

 they have no right to be ranked among the Skipjacks or Click 

 Beetles, except as Skipjacks that cannot skip, and Click Beetles 



