The ground colour of the present species is black, but it is covered with brown-black or red-brown down, the thorax being rather convex, punctured, and having a short and shallow furrow behind. The elytra are of a more decided hue, being blood-red (whence the specific name, sangwmeus), and are striated and punctured. It is not a very common insect, but

Ou Woodcut XIII. Fig. e, is drawn the larva of tliis species, which some of my readers will probably recognise as the Wikb- WORM. The fact is, there are many Wire-worms, the larvae of species of Skipjack Beetles being called by this conseveral venient name. They are termed Wire-worms for two reasons— first, because they are long and narrow, seeming to be drawn out, as it were, like wire ; and, secondly, because they are tough and hard-skinned, so that a roller passing over them does them no manner of harm, but only squeezes them into the soil, as if they were so many pieces of wire.

Some of these larva commit terrible ravages among the crops, feeding upon the roots, and so remaining themselves hidden jaws are destroying the very life of the while their ravenous plants. There are few things which irritate an agriculturist more than such a foe as this. He makes up his mind to the the turnip-fly, the snail, and other creatures which caterpillar, itself. They at least can be seen while devour the plant closely they may conceal themselves at other eating, however and the amount of food which they take is proportionate times, which they do. But the Wire-worm wastes and to the mischief and, while it only eats one-tenth the eats in concealment, of that consumed by a caterpillar of equal size, destroys amount the number of plants. Various projects have been ten times the Wire-worm, but I hear of no set on foot for extirpating has succeeded except that provided by Nature, plan that of certain birds for the Wire-worm. Mr. namely, the fondness that even pheasants are useful to the Westwood mentions their crops having been found stuffed farmer in this respect, There are very few plants or flowers which with Wire-worms. will not attack, and the gardener as well this voracious insect interested in the Skipjack Beetles as the farmer is therefore and their progeny. _ c of Wire-worms, as it finds them

The mole is a great eater and can take them while making the supernear the surface, ^vithin an inch or two ficial burrows which it often excavates It is stated that this destrucof the surface of the ground. larva remains five years in the ground before assuimng je tive to encourage as far as possible

pupal stage, so that we ought assists in keeping do^vn its numbers.

every creature which

Our last example of these insects is that which is represented on Woodcut XIV. Fig. 1, and is known by the name of Campylus linearis.

As the reader may see by reference to the figure, this insect is very unlike any of the Beetles of this group which have been already described. The head projects boldly from the thorax, and the eyes are very large. The hinder angles of the

are rither elevated, sharp, and bent outwardly The Wy IS long and slender, a fact he which has gained for th^' '

specific title of linearis. The generfc Greek origin, the word signifying a pTcu^* , Oarnpylns .e of name has been chosen form of the on^accrnrofT slender, stick-like insect. sTent ^t“k This is an extremely variable species in point of colour.

very remarkable in this respect. Red, however, the female being and the average hues of the insect may is the leading colour, as follows : — The head is black and deeply puncbe described and the thorax has a deep fm-row along the centre, tured, or ‘impression’ a little behind the and a transverse pit specimens there is a black Its colom- is brick-red, and in many in others the same part is brown. spot on the centre, while more convex in the female than the The elytra are rather covered with striae and punctures. Their opposite sex, and are same as that of the thorax, but rat er colom- is somewhat the especially among the females, paler, though in many examples, except the margin, which the whole elytra are yellowish-brown retains the ordinary brick-red colour. one, especially in certain years, it

The insect is a plentiful which should be use is best taken by means of the sweep-net, in copses, and similar locahties. It along the sides of hedges, example of its genus. is the only British

CHAPTER IX.

Mala Godebml

In this group of Beetles are gathered together a number of Beetles differing much from each other in many points, but agi'eeing in the one characteristic which has gained for them the name of Malacodermi, or Soft-skinned Beetles. In these insects the exterior of the body, instead of being quite hard and strong, as is the case with those Beetles which we have examined, is soft and flexible, and generally covered with a very short and delicate down.

We begin our notice of these Beetles with the family of the Lampyridae, of which only one species inhabits England, namely, the well-known Gtlow-worm {Lampyris noctiluca). In this family, the female possesses neither wings nor elytra, the head is concealed under the large and rounded prothorax, and both sexes have the power of emitting a phosphorescent light, the lamp of the female being very much brighter than that of her mate.

This, almost our sole representative of the exotic light-giving insects, is fortunately very plentiful in this country, and may be seen abundantly in sheltered spots, preferring those which are slightly damp. It is very abundant in Kent, and in the summer evenings the green-blue lamp of the Glow-worm may be seen shining amid the leaves. If examined in the dark, the light is seen to proceed from the three last segments of the body, the under side of which emits the light in a wavering, uncertain sort of way, the -fact of being handled seeming to alarm the insect and cause it to retain the light-giving power. Sometimes, indeed, it puts out its lamp altogether when ! oxygen handled, gas the the light light being is evidently greatly under the control of the insect. It is said, however, that if a Glow-worm be placed in intensifled, and the Beetle

seerns unable or unwilling to retain it. Gilbert White, in his ‘ Selborne,’ remarks that the Glow-worms put out their lamps between eleven and twelve at night, and shone no more for the rest of the night.

Both sexes of the Glow-worm are represented on Plate VI., the male at Fig. 1, and the female on his right at Fig. 2. The dissimilarity between the sexes is very strongly marked, the female being entirely wingless, while the male has large wings, and elytra which cover the whole of the body. It is popularly thought that the male does not possess the light-giving power ; but this is a mistake, as every practical entomologist must know. Still, though the male does possess a lamp, it is very much smaller and feebler than that of the female, and, instead of a mass of phosphorescence, throwing a radiance of some inches in extent, it is nothing more than two tiny spots of light, no larger than minnikin pins’ heads. I once took a male Glow-worm on the wing with his lamps lighted.

As to the object of the light, it is a matter of very great uncertainty. The obvious solution of the problem is to say that the light is intended to guide the male to his mate ; and if the naturalist be a classical scholar, he will be sure to make an allusion to Hero and Leander — The chilling night-dews fall— away, retire ; Eor see, the Grlow-worm lights her amorous tiro ! Thus, ere night’s veil had half obscured the sky. The impatient damsel liangs her lamp on high: True to the signal, by love’s meteor led, Leander hastened to his Hero’s bed. even though written by so acute a naturalist as These lines, are more poetical than true. I cannot of course Gilbert White, of the female may not act as a guide to her say that the light cannot see that this is the object of the light. mate, but I insects which manage to find There are plenty of night-flying the dark without the use of any such aid, being their mates in rather than sight; and, even if the attracted to them by scent Glow-worm be intended for such light emitted by the female male cannot be of the slightest use either a purpose, that of the to him or to the mate whom he is seeking. perfect insects, but the pup*, the

Moreover, not only the luminous, so that in these larv*, and even the eggs are slightly

cases the liglit evidently cannot act as a guide. I am inclined to believe that no utilitarian theory will account for this singular development of light from a living insect, and that the phosphorescence was given to it for the same reason that the butterfly’s wing glows with many-coloured plumage, and the rose is dowered with softly-tinted petals and sweet perfume.

This insect is doubly interesting to the entomologist. In the first place, it is a British light-producer ; and in the second, its life in the larval state is a very valuable one to the agriculturist. It feeds on snails, attacking and devouring them while still alive, their shells being no protection to the luckless molluscs. The structure of this larva is rather remarkable. In the first place, it bears a singularly close resemblance to the perfect female insect ; and in the next, it is furnished with a peculiar apparatus at the end of the tail, which serves a double purpose, primarily of assisting in locomotion, and secondarily acting as a brush, by which the slime of the snail can be swept from its body. In some works on entomology, this organ has been erroneously drawn like a shaving’-brash cut off square at the end, whereas it consists of some seven or eight projections from the end of the body, which can be protruded or withdiawn at will. Almost as soon as the snails begin to come out from the hiding-places in which they have lain dormant through the winter, the Grlow-worm larva is ready to attack them, and thus plays its part in reducing the number of snails that would have been produced by those which it kills, and so helping to preserve the balance of Nature.

It remains in the larval state until April or May, accordincr to the warmth of the weather, and then changes into a pupa, the male and female forms being then very distinct, as the former exhibits the rudiments of the elytra, while the latter remains as wingless as in the larval state. After the lapse of a fortnight or a little more, the pupal envelope bursts, and the perfect Beetle makes its appearance. The generic name of Lampyna is formed from two Greek words, signifying ‘ shinin<^-

In the little Beetle known by the name oi Dnlus flavescens je have another of the many unknovm benefactors of the gnculturist and gardeners. A portrait of this insect is given

on Woodcut XV*. Fig. 4, enlarged about two and a half diameters, so as to show the peculiarities of its structure.

The genus is distinguished by several points of structure. The antennae of the male are beautifully and deeply pectinated, the pectination being on the inner side only of the antennae. The head projects boldly from the thorax, thus diifering greatly from the preceding insect, and the ends of the mandibles are two-notched. The body is rather long and moderately convex. The ground colour of this insect is black, but when it is in good condition, it is thickly covered with yellowish-grey down, which has a sort of rich velvet-like aspect. Tlie elytra are also covered with down, and are very soft.

Page 27 of 117