6 STEWART MACDOUGALL—ON THE LIFE-HISTORY 
front part of the mesothorax against the hind part of the pro- 
thorax. With reference to this noise—not an unusuai one among 
the longicorn beetles—the gardener in charge of an orchid-house 
where Dzaxenes was captured informed me that, not liking to 
take the beetle in his hand, he had picked it off “with a small 
pair of tongs, on which the poor creature began squeaking.” 
I was much struck by their protective colouration. When 
resting on a withered root, cr on the moss of the pot, or near a 
withered bulb where only the whitish-grey fibres remained, it 
was almost impossible for a stranger to pick out the beetle, so 
accurately did the colour of the beetle—especially on account of 
the longitudinal light lines down its back—harmonise with these 
surroundings, 
The death-feigning instinct of the imagines was also very 
noticeable. 
The adult beetles eat greedily and are very destructive. They 
feed upon and destroy :— 
(1) The Pseudo-Bulbs. Out of these they gnaw large pieces. 
If the pseudo-bulb be a small one it may be entirely eaten away; 
specially would the beetles take the youngest growth. If the 
pseudo-bulbs were long and narrowish they would be gnawed at 
one place till the weight of the upper part would break the 
pseudo-bulb in two. This was the case, for example, where a 
species of Phajzus with a single pseudo-bulb was used as food. 
(2) Zhe Leaves. These were not bitten from the edge; but 
the surface, either upper or lower, would be gnawed until holes 
appeared. If the leaves were very tough—as in the case of 
Lelia anceps—a hole might not result, but the scraped surface 
remained to testify to the work of the feeding beetles. Often a 
leaf would be bitten and gradually thinned away near its place 
of attachment to the pseudo-bulb, and the leaf, becoming top- 
heavy, bent over and broke or hung down. 
(3) Zhe Rhizome. Sometimes the exposed part of the rhizome 
would also be eaten away. 
(4) Zhe Roots. Several times in the course of the experiment 
fairly thick roots were bitten through ; but a commoner damage 
to the root was the gnawing away of the external parts into the 
central cylinder (as shown in one of the figures). 
The effect of all the above destruction was evidenced by the 
