136 THE UNIVERSE. 



The musk Cerambyx exhales the most grateful odour 

 of roses; all round about the willow which it inhabits the 

 air is perfumed with the scent, and these emanations 

 betray the insect with fatal certainty to the collectors in 

 pursuit of it. But the leafage of this tree nourishes also 

 stinking bugs. Is it that from the same aliment the one 

 can draw the most marvellous essences, and the other 

 only re^^ulsively foetid fluids ? 



The bee exudes the softening wax from one region of 

 its body, and burning caustic from another; can the nectar 

 of flowers furnish the perfumed honey and the most acrid 

 venom ? 



The Cantharis and the INIeloe transmute the harmless 

 juices of our ash-trees and the grass of our meadows into 

 dangerous poisons, and how many persons have fallen 

 victims to these ^^oisonous insects in our country ! ^ Yet it 

 is the same grass which loads with fat the flesh of our cattle. 



' The Cantharis officinalis, so much employed at pre.sent for making blisters, 

 is one of the most deadly poisons iu the world. It produces death when given 

 in a very small dose, and even the external use of it is not free from danger. 

 The works of writers of every epoch contain lamentable accounts of poisoji- 

 ing produced by this foi'midable C'oleopteron. Pliny relates that Cossinus 

 a Roman knight, and a favourite of Nero, died after having taken a drink 

 prepared with Cantharides hy one of the Egyptian physicians, who were at that 

 time very much sought after in Rome. The writings of Galen and Dioscorides 

 contain similar tales. Among modern authors Orfila and H. Cloquet also quote 

 a nimiber of those cases of poisoning, wdiich are common enough. — Orfila, Traite 

 des Poisons. Paris, 1818, t. i. p. 565. H. Cloquet, Faune des Medicins. Paris, 

 1823, t. iii. p. 241. 



Other Coleoptera contain poisons wdiich are no less active than those of the 

 blistering fly, as for instance the Meloes, heavy insects of a deep blue colour, 

 having only rudimentary elytra, and which are found in the grass at the spring 

 of the year. Latreille thinks that it was these that the ancients called Buprestides, 

 and accused of being fatal to oxen when they swallowed them along with the 

 gr:iss of the meadows. Accoi'ding to the same learned author, the criminal use of 

 these insects was so common at that time, that the legislators were oblifed to 

 try and check it by proclaiming the Lex Cornelia, which condemned to death any 

 man who poisoned his fellow-man with Meloes.— Latreille, Cows d Entomologie. 

 Paris, 1831, p. 56. 



