MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



189 



weapons, and valour ; concealing themselves in various ways, 

 or by counteracting the designs and attacks of their enemies 

 by contrivances that require ingenuity and skill. 



The attitudes which insects assume for this purpose are 

 various. Some are purely imitative, as in many instances 

 detailed above. I possess a diminutive rove-beetle (Aleochara 

 complicans K. Ms.), to which my attention was attracted as 

 a very minute, shining, round black pebble. This successful 

 imitation was produced by folding its head under its breast, 

 and turning up its abdomen over its elytra ; so that the most 

 piercing and discriminating eye would never have discovered 

 it to be an insect. I have observed that a carrion beetle 

 (Silpha thoracica) when alarmed has recourse to a similar 

 manoeuvre. Its orange-coloured thorax, the rest of the body 

 being black, renders it particularly conspicuous. To obviate 

 this inconvenience, it turns its head and tail inwards till they 

 are parallel with the trunk and abdomen, and gives its thorax 

 a vertical direction, when it resembles a rough stone. The 

 species of another genus of beetles {Agaihidiuvri) will also 

 bend both head and thorax under the elytra, and so assume 

 the appearance of shining globular pebbles. 



Related to the defensive attitude of the two last-mentioned 

 insects, and precisely the same with that of the Armadillo 

 (Dasypus) amongst quadrupeds, is that of one of the species 

 of woodlouse (Armadillo vulgaris). This insect, when alarmed, 

 rolls itself up into a little ball. In this attitude its legs and 

 the underside of the body, which are soft, are entirely covered 

 and defended by the hard crust that forms the upper surface 

 of the animal. These balls are perfectly spherical, black, 

 and shining, and belted with narrow white bands, so as to 

 resemble beautiful beads ; and could they be preserved in this 

 form and strung, would make very ornamental necklaces and 

 bracelets. At least so thought Swammerdam's maid, who, 

 finding a number of these insects thus rolled up in her 

 master's garden, mistaking them for beads, employed herself 

 in stringing them on a thread ; when to her great surprise, 

 the poor animals beginning to move and struggle for their 

 liberty, crying out and running away in the utmost alarm, 



