424 MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 
out its legs to meet it.—In Ray’s Letters mention is made of a singular 
combat between a spider and a toad fought at Hetcorne near Sittinghurst? 
in Kent; but as the particulars and issue of this famous duel are not 
given, I can only mention the circumstance, and conjecture that the 
spider was victorious!* Terrible as is the dragon-fly to the insect world 
in general, putting to flight and devouring whole hosts of butterflies, May- 
flies, and others of its tribes, it instils no terror into the stout heart of 
the scorpion-fly (Panorpa communis), though much its inferior in size and 
strength. Lyonnet saw one attack a dragon-fly of ten times its own big- 
ness, bring it to the ground, pierce it repeatedly with its proboscis; and 
had he not by his eagerness parted them, he doubts not it would have 
destroyed this tyrant of the insect creation.® 
When the death’s head hawk-moth was introduced by Huber into a 
nest of humble-bees, they were not affected by it, like the hive-bees, but 
attacked it and drove it out of their nest, and in one instance their stings 
proved fatal to it A black ground-beetle devours the eggs of the mole 
cricket, or Gryllotalpa, To defend them, the female places herself at the 
entrance of the nest—which is a neatly smoothed and rounded chamber 
protected by labyrinths, ditches, and ramparts—and whenever the beetle 
attempts to seize its prey, she catches it and bites it asunder.® 
I know nothing more astonishing than the wonderful muscular strength 
of insects, which, in proportion to their size, exceeds that of any other 
class of animals, and is likewise to be reckoned amongst their means of 
defence. Take one of the common chafers or dung-beetles ee 
stercorarius, or Copris lunaris) into your hand, and observe how he makes 
his way in spite of your utmost pressure ; and read the accounts which 
authors have left us of the very great weights that a flea will easily move, 
as if a single man should draw a waggon with forty or fifty hundred weight 
of hay: — but upon this I shall touch hereafter, and therefore only hint at 
it now. 
We are next to consider the modes of concealment to which insects have 
recourse in order to escape the observation of their enemies. One is by 
covering themselves with various substances. Of this description is a little 
water-beetle (Hlophorus aquaticus) which is always found covered with mud, 
and so when feeding at the bottom of a pool or_pond can scarcely be 
distinguished, by the predaceous aquatic insects ffom the soil on which 
it rests. Another very minute insect of the same order (Limnius eneus) 
that is found in rivulets under stones and the like, sometimes conceals its 
elytra with a thick coating of sand, that becomes nearly as hard as stone. 
I never met with these animals so cir¢umstanced but once ; then, however, 
there were several which had thus defended themselves, and I can now 
show you a specimen. — A species of a minute coleopterous genus (Geo- 
ryssus areniferus®), which lives in wet spots where the toad-rush (Juncus 
1 Hedcorne near Sittingbourne. 2 Dr. Long in Ray’s Ledters, 370. 
5 Lesser, 1. i. 263. Note f. 
4 Huber, Nouv. Obs. ii. 801. 
5 Bingley, Animal. Biogr, iii. 1st Ed. 247, White, Nat, Hist. ii. 82. : 
6 Tn former editions of this work this insect was stated to be synonymous with 
Trox dubius of Panzer, which it much resembles, except in the sculpture of the 
abr (Fn, Ins. Germ. Init, \xii, t. 6.); but as Schénherr and Gyllenhall, who 
had better means of ascertaining the point, regarded Georyssus pygmaeus Latr. a8 
Panzer’s insect, the reference is now omitted. G. areniferus differs considerably 
from G. pygmaeus, as described by Gyllenhall (Insect. Suec, I, iii, 675.) The front 18 
