The Beetles of British Guiana.* 
By the late Rev. William Harper, M.A. 
jHE natives of the temperate regions of the earth 
are, as a rule, but little troubled by inserts, and 
generally take very little notice of them. With 
the exception of being occasionally bitten by a bug or 
flea they are rarely annoyed by them, but when they 
come into tropical regions like British Guiana the case is 
different. Here the new-comer is at once assailed by 
mosquitoes which suck his blood, injeft poisonous matter 
into his flesh, and disturb his slumbers by their perpetual 
buzzing.f His hands and feet are not unfrequently 
attacked by chigoes attempting to build their nests, or 
rather to deposit their eggs in them. He soon finds 
that his rooms are overrun with ants of different sizes, 
which attack everything edible, that the binding on his 
books and blacking on his shoes are eaten off by cock- 
roaches, that the posts and beams of his house are being 
reduced to hollow tubes by termites or white ants, that 
every corner of his house is invaded by spiders, that 
some of the trees in his garden are stript of their leaves 
by ants, and that others are bored or striated by beetles. 
* Examples of the greater number of species referred to in this 
paper, are on view in the British Guiana Museum. — Ed. 
f This popular supposition that a mosquito injefts a venomous liquid 
into the subjeft attacked, seems to be based on the faft of the local irri- 
tation caused by the punfture. Up to the present time, no Dipterous 
inseft has been shown to possess glands for the secretion of such 
poisonous matter ; and the irritation is most likely due to the laceration 
caused by the barbed mandibles. — Ed. 
