156 INSECTS AT HOME. 



out its contents gently by the Lole which is made at its base 

 by the blades of the scissors ; through the same aperture in- 

 troduce the cotton wool, a very little at a time, so that you 

 can exactly restore the original shape of the abdomen, taking 

 care to stuff it a trifle larger than it was originally, because 

 the skin will contract a little on the cotton wool. Now, stick 

 the point of a needle perpendicularly into the setting-board, 

 and pass the eye into the abdomen, so as to prevent it from 

 losing shape by lying down. Set the other half of the Beetle 

 independently, and, when both parts are quite dry, join them 

 with a tiny drop of coaguline. If this be properly done, there 

 will not be the slightest mark of any jvmction, and the speci- 

 men will always look as well as it did when living, and preserve 

 its sofi, rounded contour. 



If ever there were a Beetle which was incapable of fighting, 

 that insect would seem to be the Meloe. Yet Mr. F. Smith 

 discovered that it not only could fight, but was ready to fight, 

 and that to the death. He had captured near Margate a num- 

 ber of examples of a rare species called Meloe rugosus, as they 

 were crawling near the nest of the bee on which they were 

 parasitic. He put them into a box, thinking no harm of them, 

 but found that on the second day of their captivity a 'free 

 fight ' had taken place among them, the result of which was 

 that some were killed and reduced to fragments, the greater 

 number of the survivors had lost either legs or antennae or 

 both, and out of two dozen Beetles only four escaped without 

 injury. It was difficult to account for this extraordinary de- 

 velopment of pugnacity, for the females had already deposited 

 their eggs ; so that the casus belli was not that which is usual 

 among all the lower animals, insects included, namely, posses- 

 sion of the female. 



We are still among some very strange Beetles, and that of 

 which we now treat is so strange, that for very many years it 

 was not known to be a Beetle, some observers having thought 

 it to be a hymenopterous insect, some taking it for the sole repre- 

 sentative of a separate order, under the name of Strepsiptera, 

 but no one discovering that it was in reality a Beetle belonging 

 to the family of the Meloidoe, a tribe of the Oil Beetles. These 

 insects can be distinguished by the short neck, and by the 



