60 BEETLES. 



when exhumed from the graves, where they have been for 

 centuries enveloping the dead, have lost none of their firmness. 

 There is a caterpillar found in the interior which is so large 

 and brightly coloured that the bushes on which it feeds are 

 quite conspicuous from some distance. It is from five to 

 six inches long, in a gorgeous livery of yellow, black, and 

 scarlet. 



The Coleoptera are more remarkable than the Lepidop- 

 tera for their widely-spread affinities, and they have been 

 better collected. The tiger-beetles, stag-beetles, carnivorous 

 beetles, and also the Cerambycidae and Lamiidte, are all well 

 represented, and the rosechafers have twenty genera peculiar 

 to Madagascar, while the metallic beetles have one genus 

 (Polybothris) containing a large number of peculiar species; 

 and the longicorn beetles are numerous and interesting;, con- 

 taining no less than twenty-four genera peculiar to the island. 

 Most of these insects are found in the lower and warmer 

 portions of the country, so that only a few of them are met 

 with in the upper forest, although there are many species even 

 there of great beauty and interest. A small beetle of most 

 vivid colouring of metallic green, blue, and scarlet is ex- 

 tremely plentiful, and may be caught by scores on a particular 

 kind of bush ; and many beautiful Buprestidse and carnivorous 

 beetles may also be obtained in the forest-clearings. But the 

 beetle which most interested me was one with a long, tapir- 

 like proboscis — a large weevil, I believe. This creature is 

 about one and a half inches long, black in colour, with tufts 

 of yellow hairs. Examining with a hand lens one at work on 

 the bark of young trees, I observed that the long proboscis 

 was toothed at the extremity, and was used to detach the 

 fibres of the wood; these were cut across, seized by the 

 minute pincers, and then drawn up, a day's work of the in- 

 sect producing a considerable hole in the tree, the object beino- 

 apparently either to feed on the flowing sap, or to prepare a 

 nest for the eggs. Insects allied to our English ladybirds, 

 but larger, are very common ; one of these has a transparent, 

 glass-like covering, more like the carapace of a minute tor- 

 toise than the wing-cover of a beetle, and this is ornamented 

 with gold spots, just like burnished gilding. 



