400 THE INSECT WORLD. 
the Société d’Agriculture of Limoges some stereotyped plates— _ 
composed, as is well known, of a very hard alloy, formed of anti- 
mony and lead—which had been pierced and riddled with holes 
by two specimens of a Bostrichus. The holes were a seventh of an 
inch in diameter, by two inches in depth. The stereotypes were 
thus perforated, although they had been wrapped up in many 
folds of paper and cardboard. As the printing served for the 
work called “ Les Fastes Militaires de la France,” one may say 
that the brave soldiers received from an insect more wounds than. 
their enemies had ever given them. 
To prove that these insects have really the power to perforate 
metals as others perforate and pass through woody matter, the 
entomologist of Limoges made the following experiment. He 
placed in a leaden box, whose sides were thin, a living specimen 
of the Fire-coloured Lepture of Geoffroy (Callidium sanguineum), 
a Coleopteron which is commonly found in houses in France in 
winter, its larvee being developed in great numbers in firewood. 
‘Above this box he fitted on another, also containing a specimen 
of this insect, which he shut in with a third box. A few days 
afterwards he separated the boxes. The middle one had been 
pierced through, and the two insects were found together, the one 
which was below having made a hole through which it might 
introduce itself into the middle box. M. Du Boys made a chemical 
experiment which enabled him to establish beyond a doubt that 
the insect which had gnawed the metal had not made it serve as 
its food. The dried body of one of these insects was analysed. 
After having immersed it in nitric acid it was completely burnt, 
and there could not be found in the ashes acted upon by the nitric 
acid the least trace of lead. ‘This experiment proves that these 
insects had for their object only to escape from the galleries in 
which they were accidentally deposited in their larva state, and 
that it was not until they had undergone their complete trans- 
formation that they endeavoured to gain their liberty. Observa- 
tious of the same kind were multiplied after the Report of M. 
Dumeril. The Académie des Sciences received, in the month of 
June, 1861, two Memoirs—one from M. Heriot, captain of artillery; 
the other from M. Bouteille, curator of the Museum of Natural 
History of Grenoble—containing many new observations on the 
