THE BEETLES. 345 



rolling again. It thus happens that, on stony ground, several 

 beetles are not seldom seen busied with a single ball. At 

 last, arrived at a suitable spot, a hole is dug in the ground 

 with the strong, toothed fore-feet, which can work like a 

 digger's spade, the pellet is dropped in and the earth 

 shovelled over. 



According to M. P. de la Brulerie (A. Murray, " Journ. 

 of Travels," vol. I., "186t5) the male Ateuchus uses his 

 jarring rasp or stridulating note to encourage the female when 

 making the dung-pellet for the future young, as well as 

 from uneasiness when she is away. 



The Scaraba.'i are specially eager after freshly fallen 

 dung, because, mixed with earth, it best serves their 

 purpose. As a rule they leave the pellet to dry a little 

 in the sun before they begin to roll it. 



The 0/icideres amputator, a species of house-beetle (Lamia) 

 living in the tropics, deserves notice, which gnaws round the 

 bark and alburnum of young twigs, and thereby causes their 

 death or fall. M. Foullet, director of the hothouses of the 

 Natural History Museum in Paris, was in a house near 

 Rio Janeiro and heard every night the rustle of the falling 

 twigs of a tree, the Acacia Lebbtck. These twigs seemed to 

 be sawn off all round, and as only their inner part remained 

 they fell either of their own accord or in consequence of the 

 wind. On whom was the guilt to be laid? Without doubt 

 it was the negroes of the property who wanted to play their 

 master a trick. But the traveller soon noticed that a 

 Lam! <i was often on the cut twig, and that it must be the 

 evil doer. One of tlie twigs was investigated, and was found 

 filled with the living larvaj and pupa? of the Oncideres. The 

 object of the destroyer was now clear ; it wanted, by cutting 

 through the alburnum, to prevent its larvre from being 

 drowned or injured by an overflow of sap ! 



A not less refined care for the bringing up of its brood is 

 shown by many of the already named weevils, or Khymhophorth 

 The Rhynchites aiiratiis, belonging to the gi'oup of so-called 

 fruit-piercers, seeks the sunny side of the apple, raises a bit 

 of the peel, lays an egg in the little hole it hollows out, and 

 then lays down the peel again so carefully that the place can 

 scarcely be seen. The hatched larva does not live entirely 

 on the pulp of the apple, but bores through it, gets into the 

 core, eats the pips, works right through the apple, lets itself 



