COLEOPTERA, OR SHEATH-WINGED INSECTS. 249 
ane 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. COVETS, or elytra, are brown, and the head 
sader 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, ete. 
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 
larvee 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 
iarge 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. 
f.2 
