MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 425 
bufonius) grows, covers itself with sand; and another nearly related to it 
(Chetophorus cretiferus K.) which frequents chalk, whitens itself all over 
with that substance. As this animal, when clean, is very black, were it 
not for this maneeuvre, it would be too conspicuous upon its white ter- 
ritory to have any chance of escape from the birds and its other assailants. 
—No insect is more celebrated for rendering itself hideous by a coat of 
dirt than the Reduvius personatus, a kind of bug sometimes found in 
houses. When in its two preparatory states, every part of its body, even 
its legs and antenna, is so covered with the dust of apartments, consisting 
of a mixture of particles of sand, fragments of wool or silk, and similar 
matters, that the animal at first would be taken for one of the ugliest 
spiders. This grotesque appearance is aided and increased by motions 
equally awkward and grotesque, upon which I shall enlarge hereafter. If 
you touch it with a hair-pencil or a feather, this clothing will soon be re- 
moved, and you may behold the creature unmasked, and in its proper 
form. It is an insect of prey ; and amongst other victims will devour its 
more hateful congener the bed-bug. Its slow movements, combined 
with its covering, seem to indicate that the object of these mancuvres is 
to conceal itself from observation, probably, both of its enemies and of its 
prey. It is therefore properly noticed under my present head. 
As Hercules, after he had slain the Nemean lion, made a doublet of its 
skin, so the larva of another insect (Hemerobius chrysops, a lace-winged 
fly with golden eyes) covers itself with the skins of the luckless Aphides 
that it has slain and devoured. From the head to the tail, this pigmy de- 
stroyer of the helpless is defended by a thick coat, or. rather mountain 
composed of the skins, limbs, and down of these creatures. Reaumur, in 
order to ascertain how far this covering was necessary, removed it, and 
put the animal into a glass, at one time with a silk cocoon, and at 
another with raspings of paper. In the first instance in the space of an 
hour it had clothed itself with particles of the silk; and in the second, 
being again laid bare, it found the paper so convenient a material, that it 
made of it a coat of unusual thickness.? 
Insects in general are remarkable for their cleanliness ;— however filthy 
the substances which they inhabit, yet they so manage as to keep them- 
selves personally neat. Several, however, by no means deserve this 
character; and I feat you will scarcely credit me when I tell you that 
not rugulose, the vertex is channelled, the antennw shorter than the head; the pro- 
thorax is rather shining, marked anteriorly with several excavations, in the middle 
of which is a channel forming a reversed cross with a transverse impression. 
Mr. Westwood remarks that the earth with which this insect is coated cannot be for 
concealment, as above stated, because it is but rarely found so covered, and only 
when it has by chance found its way into soft muddy ground. (Mod. Class of Ins. 
i. 119.) My own observations, however, lead to the different conclusion given 
above. I remember as if yesterday, though thirty-six years since, the surprise 
with which I saw ereeping in a moist (but not watery) sand-pit at Elloughton, 
near Hull, when entomologising, scores of what scemed little moving masses of 
sand, and my delight on finding the, to me, new and singular insect which was 
concealed beneath; and as I afterwards repeatedly found the same insect in similar 
situations, invariably coated with sand (not earth), and never without this covering, 
I cannot think this circumstance accidental. 
1 De Geer, iii. 283. Geofl. Hist. Ins. i, 437. 
® Reaum, iii, 391, 
