184 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



of the extraordinary freaks of nature in the connection between animal 

 and vegetable, and is perhaps unequalled in the annals of biology. 

 Another strange phrase of animal life was shown, in spirits, in the shape of a 

 fly carrying off a large spider ! This was captured in the very act in Entre 

 Bios, S. America. The spider was a large, strong, dark-bodied animal, look- 

 ing like a trap-door spider, one of these highly-organised and exceedingly 

 clever builders of which there is such a fine collection in the Liverpool 

 Museum. The fly is a strong and savage-looking insect, much smaller than j 

 the spider, but when captured it was dragging the spider up the glass of a 

 window. This seems to reverse the ordinary course of nature, and somewhat 

 spoils the familiar story of the " Spider and the Fly." Mr. Frederick Taylor, 

 of Eainhill, presented this strange couple, and it is owing to the same 

 gentleman's interest in the spider family that the Liverpool Museum has the j 

 finest collection of trap-door spiders and their houses of any museum in the 

 kingdom. Besides these specimens, there was a large glass jar standing on 

 the central table, such as is commonly used for an aquarium, and in this there 

 was prisoned an enormous beetle. It was four or five inches long, with a 

 pair of giant horns and dangerous-looking mandibles. It was feeding quietly 

 on a faded banana, and seemed quite at home. In spite of its ferocious look, 

 it is a vegetarian, and, in the larval stage, feeds on decaying vegetation, while 

 in the adult form it lives on fruit. This also came from South America, and 

 has been kept alive since June last. It is the first of the kind ever kept alive 

 in this country, and is an object of great interest to all comers. It is called 

 Dynastes, typhon, or, more familiarly, the elephant beetle. In our museum, 

 where it is now on view, it is more commonly known as Jumbo. It is a most \ 

 extraordinary sight in this English climate, where the members of the beetle 

 family are small. Dr. Ellis exhibited a case of beetles just received from Illinois, 

 U.S., which are particularly interesting from an economic point of view, if not 

 from an entomological one. They belong to the Phytophagous lamellicornia, and 

 have played havoc with the harvests in the western part of America. Some- 

 times they come flying into an orchard during the night, and in the morning 

 there is not a green leaf to be seen. At times they destroy even the trees. 

 The larvse are deposited in the grass, and when they become active, about the 

 month of May, the turf can be rolled up like a carpet, leaving exposed the 

 millions of larvse which have destroyed its roots. The exhibits of the evening ; 

 were of an exceedingly interesting character, and the society has evidently 

 done much good work. The paper of the evening was by Mr. S. L. Mosley, i 

 a gentleman well known throughout the entomological circles of the country^ 

 and particularly in Huddersfield, where his efforts to educate the children in 

 scientific things are fully appreciated. In the paper Mr. Mosley attempted 



