INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 233 



paths, at its first starting perhaps not bigger than a 

 pin's head, but gradually increasing in dimensions as the 

 animal increases in magnitude, till it attains in some 

 instances to a diameter of one or two inches. Only con- 

 ceive what havoc the grub of the vast Prionus siiantem 

 must make in a beam ! Percival is probably speaking 

 of this beetle, when, in his account of Ceylon, he tells 

 us, " There is an insect found here which resembles an 

 immense over-grown beetle. It is called by us a car- 

 penter, from its boring large holes in timber, of a regu- 

 lar form, and to the depth of several feet, in which, 

 when finished, it takes up its habitation 3 ." Seeing the 

 perfect insect come out of these holes, an unentomolo- 

 gical observer would naturally conclude that the beetle 

 he saw had formed it, and lived in it ; but, doubtless, 

 the whole was the work of the grub b . — Of all the cole- 

 opterous genera there is none the species of which are 

 generally so rich, resplendent and beautiful as those of 

 Buprestis: these likewise, in their first state, there is 

 abundant reason to believe, derive their nutriment from 

 the produce of the forest, in which they sometimes re- 

 main for many years before they assume their perfect 

 state, and appear in their full splendour, as if nature re- 

 quired more time than usual to decorate these lovely in- 



metamorphosis. I am indebted to the kindness of Sir Joseph Banks 

 for a specimen of such a sheet of lead, which, though only eight inches 

 long and four broad, is thus pierced with twelve oval holes, of some 

 of which the longest diameter is a quarter of an inch ! Mr. Charles 

 Miller first discovered lead in the stomach of the larva of this insect. 



a P. 310. 



b See Kirby, ubi supr. 253.— More than a hundred species of the 

 Capricorn tribe, many of them nondescripts, were collected in the 

 neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro by Captain Hancock, of the Fou- 

 dyoyant. 



