84 
LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
of the carpenters, the grating of the saws, the ham- 
mering of nails, seem to give her very little incon- 
venience ; she flies in and out all day about her 
business, with the most philosophical indifference, 
and nobody molests her. She has laid three eggs, 
profusely covered with red spots. She is just the 
same funny, inquisitive little thing that all the 
wTens are, peeping into every hole and corner, 
creeping into one end of a pile of logs or heap 
of stones, and out at the other, while the tail is 
carried bolt upright, with all the consequence 
imaginable. Her colour is plain, homely brown^ 
as of the other species. 
A large, heavy-looking beetle [Passalus cornutus) 
is common. It chiefly crawls by night, and in the 
morning we often see it in the paths, apparently 
overtaken unexpectedly by daylight, and not know- 
ing whither to go. It inhabits the trunks of decayed 
trees, and is often found between the bark and the 
wood. On stripping off a piece of bark from a 
prostrate hard-wood log, I have found as many as 
four or five congregated together, so stupid and inert 
as scarcely to move a limb when taken into the 
hand. It is about the size of our English Stag- 
beetle, but it has not the enormous development of 
jaws that marks that insect; its affinity to the group 
[Lucanidce) is shown, however, by the form of the 
antennae. The head is marked by a short, blunt 
horn, curved forwards : its colour is deep brown, or 
black, highly polished, the elytra furrowed. 
I have found two or three times a little beetle 
which has a very curious habit It is of a yel- 
lowish-brown colour: the hindmost legs are un- 
usually long, and these it can turn round in such a 
manner as to bring them forward ; by this means 
