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sulture.of Limoges some stereotyped plates, composed, as is well 
‘mown, of a very hard alloy, formed of antimony and lead, which 
had been pierced and riddled with holes by two specimens of, a 
Bostrichus. The holes were a seventh of an inch in diameter, by 
two inches in depth. The stereotypes were thus perforated, although 
they had been wrapped up in many folds of paper and cardboard. 
|As the Paeene served for the work called “ Les Fastes Militaires 
lie la France,” one may say that the brave soldiers received 
jfrom an insect more wounds than their enemies had ever given 
ithem. 
To prove that these insects have really the power to perforate 
imetals as others perforate and pass through woody matter, the 
jentomologist of Limoges made the following experiment. He 
iplaced in a leaden box, whose sides were thin, a living specimen 
jot the Fire-roloured Lepture of Geoffroy (Callidium sanc guineum), 
ja Coleopteron which is commonly found in houses in France in 
winter, its larvae being developed in great numbers in firewood. 
| Above this box he fitted on another, also containing a specimen of 
ithis insect, which he shut in with a third box. A few days after- 
wards he separated the boxes. The middle one had been pierced 
through, and the two insects were found together, the one which was 
\below having made a hole through which it might introduce itself 
jinto the middle box. M. Du Boys made a chemical experiment 
iwhich enabled him to establish beyond a doubt that the insect 
|which had gnawed the metal had not made it serve as its food. 
'The dried body of one of these insects was analysed. After having 
| dissolved it in azotic acid it was completely burnt, and there could 
| not be found in the ashes taken up by the azotic acid the least 
‘trace of lead. This experiment proves that these insects had for 
|their object only to escape from the galleries in which they were 
| accidentally deposited in their larva state, and that it was not 
until they had undergone their complete transformation that they 
| endeavoured to gain mets liberty. Observations of the same kind 
‘were multiplied after the Report of M. Dumeril. The Académie 
i des Sciences received, in the month of June, 1861, two Memoirs. 
}—one from M. Heriot, captain of artillery; the other from 
| M. Bouteille, curator of the Museum of Natural History of Gre- 
) noble—containing many new observations on the perforation by 
DD 
