156 INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS, 
The next description of insect destroyers are those which devour them 
in their first and Jast states. No beetles are more common after the 
summer is confirmed than the specics of the genus Telephorus. Preysler 
informs us that the grub of J’. fuscus destroys a great many other larvee™ ; 
and I have observed the imago devour these and also Diptera. Linné has—— 
with justice denominated the Cicindele the tigers of insects. Though 
decorated with brilliant colours, they prey upon the whole insect race ; 
their formidable jaws which cross each other are armed with fearful fangs, 
showing to what use they are applicable ; and the extreme velocity with 
which they can either run or fly, renders hopeless any attempt to elude 
their pursuit. Their larvee are also equally tremendous with the imago, 
having eight eyes, four on each side, seated on a lateral elevation of the 
head, two above, and two very minute below, which look like those of 
spiders, and, besides their threatening jaws armed with a strong internal 
tooth, being furnished with a pair of spines resembling somewhat the sting 
of a scorpion, which staid erect upon the back of the abdomen, and give 
them a most ferocious aspect. This last apparatus, according to Clairville, 
serves the purpose of an anchor for retaining them at any height in their 
deep cells.2 Most of the aquatic beetles, at least the Gyrini and Dytisci, 
prey upon other insects both in their first and final state. The larve of 
the latter have long been observed and described under the name of 
Sguille, and ave remarkable for having their mandibles adapted for suction 
like those of Hemerobius and Myrmeleon; but they are not, like them, 
deprived of a mouth, being able to devour by mastication as well as by 
suction. Another tribe of this order which abounds in species, those 
predaccous beetles which form Linné’s great genus Curabus (Butrechina*), 
is universally insectivorous. One of the most destructive is the grub of 
a very beautiful species, an English specimen of which would be a great 
acquisition to your cabinet, it being one of our rarest insects*, I mean 
Calosoma Sycophanta.. This animal takes up its station in the nests of 
Cnethocampa processionea and other moths, and sometimes fills itself so 
full with these caterpillars, which we cannot handle or even approach 
without injury, as to be rendered incapable of motion, and appear ready 
to burst. Another beautiful insect of this tribe, Carabus auratus, known 
from some bank or pathway, containing many of the nests of Andrena conveviuscula, 
which also abounded in the garden at the same time, and of which Mr, Thwaites 
captured several, all containing the larva of a Stylops (in one instance of three), or 
evident signs of a Stylops having escaped from them, ‘These singular little animals, 
whose economy and systematic place are equally perplexing, Mr. Thwaites informs 
us, “are exceedingly graceful in their flight, taking long sweeps as if carried along 
by a gentle breeze,” which, and their large expanse of wing, give them an appear- 
ance in flying very different from that of any other insect. (‘Thwaites in Trans, Ent. 
Soc. Lond, iii, 67.) 
1 Preys, Bémisch. Inseht. 59. 61. 
2 Entom. Helvetique, ii, 158 
5 In the former edition of this work (Vol. IV. p. 392.), this tribe is deno- 
minated /upodina; but as this seems too near to M. Latreille’s upoda, belong- 
ing to a different tribe of beetles, we have substituted the above name, which means 
the same. 
4 One was taken at Aldeburgh in Suffolk by Dr. Crabbe, the celebrated poet; 
another by a young lady at Southwold, which is now in the cabinet of Joseph 
Hooker, Iisq.; and a third by a boy at Norwich, crawling up a wall, which was pur 
chased of him by 8. Wilkin, Esq. 
