£74 
HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. [Packaru 
mon in the United States, is black and oval in shape, and 
would be readily mistaken for a pellet of bird’s dung. Wal¬ 
lace quotes the statement of an observer, who had more 
than once mistaken an English moth, Cilix compressa , a 
little white and gray moth, “for a piece of bird’s dung 
dropped upon a leaf, and vice versa, the dung for a mo4h.” 
Wallace also tells us that “there are in the east small bee¬ 
tles of the family Buprestidge, which generally rest on the 
midrib of a leaf, and the naturalist often hesitates before 
picking them off, so closely do they resemble pieces of bird’s 
dung.” The same might be said of the little dark brownish, 
bronzed Brachys often seen in midsummer resting motion¬ 
less on the leaves of the oak. 
Some carrion beetles are dark, like the decaying bodies 
under which they live, and so are their larvae, but why other 
Fig. 212. Fig. 213. 
Attagenua Larva. 
Anthrenus and young. 
forms, like the Necrophori and Necrophili, are banded sc 
conspicuously with red or yellow, does not seem clear to us. 
Many of the small Catops, the Nitidulae, the Staphylini, are 
dark red or brown or black, these colors harmonizing with 
the sombre tints of the decaying substances on which they 
live. I have noticed that the Antherophagus ochraceus , a 
dud ochreous reddish beetle, is of the same hue as the cells 
of the humble bee, in which they are often exceedingly 
common. The Dermestes, Attagenus (Fig. 212, larva) and 
18 
