MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



211 



a doublet of its skin, so the larva of another insect {Heme- 

 robius clirysops, 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 co- 

 vering 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 con- 

 venient a material, that it made of it a coat of unusual thick- 

 ness. 1 



Insects in general are remarkable for their cleanliness ; — 

 however filthy the substances which they inhabit, yet they 

 so manage as to keep themselves personally neat. Several, 

 however, by no means deserve this character : and I fear you 

 will scarcely credit me when I tell you that some shelter 

 themselves under an umbrella formed of their own excrement ! 

 You will exclaim, perhaps, that there is not a parallel case in 

 all nature ; — it may be so ; — yet as I am bound to confess 

 the faults of insects as well as to extol their virtues, I must 

 not conceal from you this opprobrium. Beetles of three 

 different genera are given to this Hottentot habit. The first 

 to which I shall introduce you is one that has long been 

 celebrated under the name of the beetle of the lily (Crioceris 

 merdigera, Cantaride de> Gigli Vallisn.). The larva? of this 

 insect have a very tender skin, which appears to require 

 some covering from the impressions of the external air and 

 from the rays of the sun ; and it finds nothing so well adapted 

 to answer these purposes, and probably also to conceal itself 

 from the birds, as its own excrement, with which it covers 

 itself in the following manner. Its anus is remarkably 

 situated, being on the back of the last segment of the body, 

 and not at or under its extremity, as obtains in most insects. 

 By means of such a position, the excrement when it issues 



1 Reaum. iii. 391. 



p 2 



