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446 THE INSECT WORLD. 
under the rather quaint name of the ‘“ Livrée d’Ancre,”’ because 
the Marquis of Ancre made his servants wear yellow coats, bor- 
dered by braid alternately crossed with green and yellow. 
The Osmoderma eremita is a large insect, of purple colour, 
formerly common in the environs of Paris, and which, now-a- 
days, cannot be found nearer than Fontainbleau. One must 
look for them in earth which fills up the cavity of old willows 
or of pear-trees. The smell of Russia leather or of plum which it 
exhales has caused it to be called, in some places, the Plum- 
tree beetle. 
The Gnorimus nobilis much resembles the Rose beetle, and is 
found on elder flowers, whose whiteness this golden insect relieves. 
One species, much smaller, only one or two lines long, is the 
Valgus hemipterus, which one often meets with m spring, in the 
dust of the roads. The female has a long auger, which enables it 
to deposit its eggs in rotten wood. Dumeril has described at 
length the singular movements of this little insect:—The jerking 
and, as it were, convulsive movements by which it transports itself 
from one place to another; its tottering attitude, resulting from 
the excessive length of its hind legs; the vertical carriage of 
these, which by their singular direction, interfere much less with 
the walking, which is directed by the other legs. One should, above 
all, notice the artifice which the Va/gus employs, as indeed do 
many Coleoptera, to escape from his persecutors, by counterfeiting 
death. As soon as it is seized by any enemy, its members stiffen 
and become motionless. The body, abandoned to itself, lies un- 
evenly on whatever side it falls, for its legs no longer bend; if 
you bend them over, they remain in the inclination given to 
them. Nothing then betrays life in this little dry and slender 
being, frozen with fear, and imitating death, without perhaps 
being aware itself of what it is doing. 
We must still further mention here the 7xcas—beautiful insects 
of the same group, which are met with in South America, and 
whose males have an extraordinary head. They fly during the 
day round the great trees on which they live. Fig. 481 repre- 
sents the Inca clathrata. 
The most commonly known insect of the family with which we 
are now occupied, is the Cockchafer. The French word for 

