Elatekid.b.- 



-INSECTS.- 



-SIalacodekmata. 



221 



Family— ELATERID.E {SKip-Jacls). 



Another prodigiously numerous family of insects, so 

 called from the power they have of righting themselves 

 if placed on their back, by a spring of their thorax and 

 abdomen, a projecting process from the one fitting easily 

 into a notch of the other. Fig. 101 represents the 

 British Agriotea Unealus. Oxynopterus Cuminrjii is 

 figured on Plate 2, fig. 11. 



Fig. 101. 



Fig. 102. 



Agiiotes line:itu3. 



Larva of Canipyhis lineiwis. 



Fig. 102 is that of the larva of Campyhis linearis, 

 which is of a very deep brown colour. Messrs. Chapuis 

 and Candeze describe it as being found in the same 

 ]ilace as that of the Athous hirtus, which they meet 

 with in galleries of trees, or under the bark of old trees. 

 Though most Elaters are plant-eaters, yet there is no 

 doubt that some are carnivorous. 



Wireworms are too well known to require descrip- 

 tion. Our farmers find that ground where their ravages 

 have been carried on miirht as well have been burned. 



Fig. 103. 



Grub of the Alaus oculatus. 



Fig. 103 is that of the grub of a very large species 

 abundant in the United States, and conspicuous from 

 the two large ocellated spots on its thora.x, and hence 

 named Alaus oculatus. This grub is two inches and a 

 half long; the head is almost black ; the three follow- 

 ing segments are blackish-brown, and the remaining 

 segments are brownisb-3'ellow. Tlie body is depressed, 

 and the segments have distinct contractions where the 

 segments are connected. 



The different species of Pyrophorns seem to vary in 

 their light-producing powers. Lacordaire has described 

 the species he observed in Guiana, while Gosse has 

 recorded his observations on the Jamaica species. The 

 latter describes the Glow-fly, for so he calls this beetle, 

 as having tlie light from the two thoracic tubercles 

 visible even in broad daylight, when the insect is dis- 

 turbed. When the beetle is handled these spots, 

 [ireviously of a dull white hue, gradually brighten up ; 

 the centre of each tubercle first showing a point of 

 light which in a moment spreads to the circumference, 

 and increases in biilliancv till it blazes with a dazzling 



lustre. This light is of a yellow-green. The larvaj 

 are said to feed on the roots of the sugar cane, ai.d 

 they sometimes prove destructive to that plant. 



The Brazilian traveller is often charmed with the 

 light of the fire-fl)', which has a singular and mysterious 

 ollect at times. Drs. Kidder and Fletcher* when on 

 the Oregon mountains, and overtaken by sunset, came to 

 the edge of a crater-like hollow, whose centre was a 

 thousand feet below them, and whose sides were covered 

 with trees. One of them says, " Before retracing my 

 steps I stood for a few moments looking down into the 

 Cimmerian blackness of the gulf beneath me; and while 

 thus gazing, a luminous mass seemed to start from the 

 very centre. I watched it as it floated up, revealing in 

 its slow flight the long leaves of the Euterpe edulis,^ 

 and the minuter foliage of other trees. It came directly 

 towards me, lighting up the gloom around with its 

 three luminosities, which I could now distinctly see." 

 It was the Pyropliorus nodilucus — a longish click 

 beetle of a dull blackish brown colour, and covered over 

 with a short light brown pubescence. When walking 

 or at rest, the chief light that it emits proceeds from the 

 two yellow tubercles on the thorax, so conspicuous 

 even in dead specimens ; but when flying, another lumi- 

 nous spot is discernible on the hinder part of the thorax, 

 and this is continued to the under side of the insect. 

 In some parts of South America the ladies use them 

 for adorning their hair or their robes by fast inclosing 

 them within a thin gauze work. Prescott, the historian 

 of the conquest of Mexico, records the terror with 

 which they inspired the Spanish in 1520: — "The air 

 was tilled with 'cocuyos,' a species of large beetle, 

 which emits an intense phosphoric light from its body, 

 strong enough to enable one to read by it. These 

 wandering fires, seen in the darkness of the night, were 

 converted by the besieged into an army with match- 

 locks." 



Section-— MALACODEPvMATA. 



Malacodermata, or Malacodermi, as some write the 

 word : I may mention a few of the beetles of this 

 group, such as the Cebkionid.e, with their curious 

 females, so unlike the males, who find them iu wet 

 weather projecting from the ground. Some of them 

 have curious flat cases in which the pupa is contained 

 — such is the insect, allied to Atopa, described by the 

 writer in vol. iii. of the third series of the "Annals of 

 Natural History," and figured on Plate 7. I tigure 

 the cylindrical larva of the Cchrio ijiyas. 



Cylindrical lan-a of the Cebrio gi^'as. 



The family Riiii'ICERID.e, with their beautiful fan- 

 like antennoe, whence their name is derived, are inter- 

 esting — as some of them are natives of South America, 

 such as the Rhipicera margituita figured on Plate 2, 



• Brazil ami the Brazilians, p. 292. t A species of palm. 



