COLEOPTEKA, OB SHEATH-WINGED INSECTS. 249 



iting in it and upon it their eggs. The Crusader Carrion 

 Beetle, Fig. 195, is thus named by Jae- 

 ger from a black spot on the back of its 

 yellow thorax, which resembles some- 

 what the figure of a cross which the Cru- 

 saders wore on their coats. The wing- 

 Fig 195 -The cru- covers > or elytra, are brown, and the head 

 eader carrion Beetle, and legs are black. These Beetles are 

 seen in immense multitudes in some carrion. The habits 

 of the Big Gravedigger are very curious. It gathers in 

 great numbers round a dead frog, or mouse, or bird, etc. 

 The Beetles first examine the spot where the dead body 

 lies ; if it be stony, they select a proper place, and, by 

 their combined efforts, remove the body there. They 

 now proceed to dig the earth away from under it with 

 their fore feet, and do not leave it till they have sunken 

 it about a foot in the ground. 



429. There is a very small Beetle of this class which 

 is a great destroyer of the collections of the naturalist, 

 eating the skins of stuffed animals, and the internal parts 

 of insects. It is hence called the Cabinet Beetle. It is 

 difficult often to keep a cabinet free from them, for their 

 larvae will eat through the hardest boards. 



430. Among the Scavenger Beetles are some wood- 

 eating insects. These are of great service in tropical 

 countries, where large trees are prostrated in great num- 

 bers by hurricanes and tempests. It would take a long 

 time for the natural process of decay to remove them; 

 but these insects reduce them to dust in a short time, 

 and this dust, becoming incorporated with the earth, fer- 

 tilizes it. The common Horn Bug or Stag Beetle belongs 

 to this group. The Stag Beetle of Europe is twice as 

 large as that of this country. It is the grubs that live 

 on wood, and not the Beetles themselves. The grubs 

 of some of the wood-eating Beetles are some years in ar- 

 riving at the mature state in which they are ready to 

 change into Beetles. 



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