74 THEIR NUMBERS 



and his surprise was not much lessened when, on 

 taking one of them up, he discovered that it was 

 only a chafer that moved." 



This fact must have been known to Sir Walter 

 Scott, for in " Peveril of the Peak," in the scene 

 where Julian Peveril and GeoflFiy Hudson are im- 

 prisoned together, the dwarf says, " The least crea- 

 tures are oftentimes the strongest. Place a beetle 

 under a taU candlestick, and the insect wiU move it 

 by its eflforts to get out ; which is, in point of com- 

 parative strength, as if one of us should shake his 

 Majesty's prison of Newgate by similar struggles." 



We are generally in the habit of seeing but one or 

 two of these insects at a time, but on some occasions 

 they appear in considerable numbers. Mr. Knapp, 

 in his "Journal of a Naturalist," states that one 

 evening his attention was called to them in par- 

 ticular, by the passing of such a number as to con- 

 stitute a little stream. " I was led," he continues, 

 " to search into the object of their direct flight, as in 

 general it is irregular and seemingly inquisitive. I 

 soon found that they dropped on some recent 

 nuisance : but what powers of perception must these 

 creatiu-es possess, drawn from aU distances and 

 directions by the very little fcetor which in such a 

 calm evening could be diflFused around ! and by what 

 inconceivable means could odours reach this beetle. 



