Occasional Notes. 1S1 
of chitinous membranes in the small bodies, but the 
massive spider from which, above all others, the greatest 
quantity of food might be obtained for its offspring with 
the least expenditure of time on its own part in securing 
it. 
The Locust Beetle. —In many of the pods to be picked 
up so abundantly under those great locust trees, so 
common in the colony, are to be found specimsns of a 
small brownish yellow beetle (Cryptorhynchus stigma). 
The beetle is quite a small one, less than a quarter of an 
inch in length, and spotted with dark blotches on the 
elytra, the snout being long and rounded as in the other 
members of the group of the weevils (Curculionidae) ; 
and when the little creature is touched, or when it has 
dropped to the ground from the hand, it tucks its legs 
under it, bends its snout under its body (hence its 
generic name), and feigns death, just as so many other 
members of its kind are accustomed to do. 
The curious feature about this beetle is the peculiar 
similarity of its colouring to that of the yellowish mealy 
portion inside the pod of the locust, surrounding the 
dark seeds — a similarity which, if met with outside in an 
open situation where the beetle would be exposed to 
the pursuit of its foes, would be plainly explicable on 
the ground of natural selection, but which, in the sheltered 
precincts of the pod, cannot apparently be so regarded. 
And yet, really, the same principle seems clearly to have 
been at work, though its operatiou can only be under- 
stood by following out the history of the form. 
However carefully a pod be examined, no apertures 
will be found at which a creature of such a size can either 
