Insects. 7327 



heightens the resemblance. Ou a sudden a taint in the pure air offends 

 our nostrils, but we know it, and, like the vulture to his carrion meal, 

 we are led by the nose to the carcase of a sheep. Placing our 

 " nobility " to windward we capsize the defunct mutton, and Necro- 

 phori, Histers and Dermestes reward the bold adventure. 



We are now, after walking some little distance, close to Miller's 

 Point, and approach the great flat wild-looking rocks where they haul 

 up captured or stranded whales by chains and windlasses and strip 

 the bones off the flesh and blubber. All around are stray fragments of 

 the mighty fish-like mammals, and turning over a dorsal vertebra (with 

 effort, for it is a large bone) perchance we secure a Silpha, or by a 

 delicate investigation of an unsavoury fathom of " baleen " we pos- 

 sibly appropriate a Cercyon or a Catops. 



On our return we descend the sand hills near the sea, and by the 

 "ancient and fish-like smell" we become aware of the vicinity of a 

 station of cleaning and drying fish. We raise a casual board, and 

 behold ! the under side is alive with Brachini about an inch long, 

 numbers of them exploding in a most bombadier-like manner, while 

 others are making themselves scarce as fast as their six legs can carry 

 them. The vapour of this large species is very acrid, and leaves a 

 permanent yellow stain on the fingers. 



Occurrence of Prognatha in Java. — Now that Staphs, once much 

 abused and shamefully neglected, are become fashionable among 

 beetles, I know I shall be commended if I record the capture of a 

 species of Prognatha (a very singular genus of a very singular group) 

 in the forests of Java, under precisely similar circumstances as those 

 attending the capture of P. quadricornis in England. 



In that dear country from which, alas ! I have been these four years 

 banished, I remember taking the insect in the good old days when 

 Dr. Power, E. Shepherd, my brother Henry and myself used to tres- 

 pass on the pheasant preserves and haunt the green bye-lanes of 

 Southei'n Hampshire, not without exciting suspicion in the minds of 

 certain gentry in velveteen shooting-coats that we were either vagrants, 

 poachera or incendiaries. Seated on the trunk of a noble elm whose 

 head had recently submitted to the axe, we idly peel off the Scolytus- 

 eaten bark, where, lying " perdu," we discover Prognatha quadricornis. 

 By the way, should my observations anent Prognatha or any other 

 "small beast" be considered neither very succinct nor much to the 

 point, but, on the contrary, extremely rambling and incoherent, the 

 failing I would suggest might charitably be ascribed to a sailor's pro- 

 verbial love of " spinning long yarns." 



