MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 933 
manceuvre. Its orange-coloured thorax, the rest of the 
body being black, renders it particularly conspicuous. 
To obviate this inconvenience, it turns its head and tail 
inwards till they are parallel with the trunk and abdo- 
men, and gives its thorax a vertical direction, when it 
resembles a rough stone.—The species of another genus 
of beetles (dgathidium, F.) will also bend both head and 
thorax under the elytra, and so assume the appearance of 
shining globular pebbles. 
Related to the defensive attitude of the two last-men- 
tioned insects, and precisely the same with that of the 
Armadillo (Dasypus, L.) amongst quadrupeds, is that of 
one of the species of woodlouse (Armadillo vulgaris, 
Latr.). This insect when alarmed rolls itself up into 
a little ball. In this attitude its legs and the underside 
of the body, which are soft, are entirely covered and de- 
fended by the hard crust that forms the upper surface of 
the animal. These balls are perfectly spherical, black, 
and shining, and belted with narrow white bands, so as 
to resemble beautiful beads; and could they be preserved 
in this form and strung, would make very ornamental 
necklaces and bracelets. At least so thought Swammer- 
dam’s maid, who, finding a number of these insects thus 
rolled up in her master’s garden, mistaking them for 
beads, employed herself in stringing them on a thread ; 
when, to her great surprise, the poor animals beginning 
to move and struggle for their liberty, crying out and 
running away in the utmost alarm she threw down her 
prize*.—The golden-wasp tribe also, (Chrysis and Par- 
nopes, F°.) all of which I suspect to be parasitic msects, 
roll themselves up, as I have often observed, into a little 
a Hulls Swamm. i. 174. 
