Ch. XI.] CICADAS. BEETLES. 177 



they make is so loud that it thrills through the ears in a 

 manner perfectly deafening. You approach the bush from 

 which it appears to issue, and you even appear to have 

 reached the very spot in which the animal is concealed, hut, 

 nothing daunted, the insect continues its screeching, and 

 you may peer about and look for a ghmpse of it in vain. 

 Your proximity does not disturb it, for it seems to think 

 that it is quite safe in its concealment, and even thrusting 

 a stick into the bush wiU not dislodge it, nor in all cases 

 even stop the noise. At the same time one cannot be ab- 

 solutely certain that it is really in that particular bush, for 

 the mere intensity of the sound is not sufficient to fix its 

 exact locality, though the thrill it sends through the ears 

 proves it must be very near. 



The various species of beetles are nearly as successful in 

 concealing themselves as the Cicadas, and while they are by 

 no means exceedingly numerous in Labuan, the commonest 

 are not in very great profusion, if we except a species of 

 Cicindela (C. aurulenta), which flies over sandy spots, as is 

 the habit of aU Cicindelas, and could always be captured in 

 any quantities in such situations, and the orange-spotted 

 Dacne 4-maculata with its allies. A gentleman who had 

 been an insect-collector for a dozen years, assured me that 

 he had never succeeded in discovering where beetles harbour, 

 or how to collect them in quantities. The fact probably is, 

 that under the bark and in the decaying wood of recently- 

 felled trees, are the situations in which we should look for 

 them with most success. Of large species the very variable 

 Xylotrupes Gideon is not uncommon, and I captured 

 numerous small species which have great interest for the 

 coleopterist. 



Hemipterous insects (the bugs of the entomologist) 



