462 THE INSECT WORLD. 
They only fly in the evening, holding themselves nearly straight, so 
as not to see-saw. Their larvee—which are whitish, with russety 
heads, whose existence in that state lasts nearly four years—live in 
the interior of trees. Many naturalists think that the larva of the 
Lucanus was the Cossus of the Romans, which figured on the 
tables of the rich patricians, and particularly of Lucullus. 












Fig. 447.—Stag Beetle (Lucanus cervus). Fig. 448.—Lucanus (Homoderus) Mellyi. 
Fig. 447 represents the Stag Beetle (Lucanus cervus); Fig. 448, 
an exotic species, the Lacanus (Homoderus) Mellyi, from Gabon ; 
Fig. 449, the Lucanus bellicosus; and Fig. 450, another exotic 
species from Celebes, Dorcus Titan. 
The Syndesus cornutus (Fig. 451) of Tasmania, and the Chiasog- 
nathus Granti, from the coast of Chili (Fig. 452), of a beautiful 
golden green, shot with copper, belong to genera akin to Lucanus. 
We arrive now at the tribe of Silphales, which are still more 
useful to man than the Dung Beetles (Scarabeide), since many of 
them disencumber the soil of the carcasses of animals in a state of 
