The Insect World: Being a Popular Account of the Orders of Insects

triturate Imrd bodies; they all feed either on flowers, on leaves, or on stercoraceous matter. Their larvae resemble each other much, even those of families very widely differing from each other in the perfect state. They are large, whitish worms, with diaphanous skins, scaly heads, furnished with toothed mandibles, living in the ground or in rotten wood. The pupae are fat and stumpy, and they already show the features of the perfect insect. They make a chamber in which to undergo their changes. They remain generally three years in the larva state. The duradon of the pupa is very short, as also is that of the perfect insect. The differences of the sexes are often very marked on the exterior, by protuberances, horns, &c., which constitute the distinctive ornament of the males.

In the group of Scarabceides we shall have to speak, above all, of

Fig. 423. — Rose Beetle {Cetoitia aurata).

the CetoniadcE, the Chafers, and the Scarabcei properly so called. The family Cetoniadce is one of the most remarkable, on account of the beauty of the insects which compose it and of the richness of their metallic lustre, some being of great splendour, and others having velvety tints. The larvae live in wood in a state of decomposition; the perfect insects frequent flowers, and like the sun.

This family contains a great number of species, the type of which is the Rose Beetle {Cefonia aurata), of a beautiful green colour shot with gold, with transverse whitish lines. The rose beetle frequents roses especially, of which it eats the petals and the stamens. It is the Golden Melolontha of Aristotle, who tells us that this unfortunate insect shared with the cockchafer the privilege of amusing children. The Cetonia flies by day and by night, making use of its inferior wings

without opening the elytra (Fig. 423). When seized, it pours oui from the extremity of its abdomen a foetid Uquid, the only means of defence the poor insect possesses. The larva (Fig. 424) much resembles the larva of the cockchafers, but the legs are shorter. It is found in rotten wood, and often in ants' nests. When it has acquired its full development it makes a cocoon of an oval form (Fig. 424), in which it transforms itself into a pupa; the cocoon is composed of bits of wood agglomerated with a silky matter which the larva secretes.

The larva of the Cdotiia splendidula — which is the most magnificent found in France — is met with sometimes in the nests of wild bees. In Russia the rose beetle is considered a verv efficacious

Fig. 424.— Larva and cocoon of the Rose Beetle.

remedy for hydrophobia. In the governorship of Saratow, which is traversed by the Volga, hydrophobia is very frequent, on account of the heats which reign during the whole summer in its arid steppes. The inhabitants, incessantly exposed to be bitten by mad dogs, have tried in succession a great many preparations to remedy the results of these terrible accidents. It appears that the Cetonia, dried and reduced to powder, has produced on many occasions good effects. This is the recipe which an inhabitant of Saratow published in a Russian journal — adding, that he had employed it for thirty years, that not one of the patients treated by him had died, and that his remedy could be employed with success in all the phases of the disease: — In spring they search at the bottom of the nests of the wood ant for certain white larvae, which they carefully preserve in a pot, together with the earth in which they were found, till the moment of their metamorphosis, which takes place in the month of May. The insect, which is the common rose beetle, is killed, dried,

and kept in pots hermetically sealed, so that it may preserve the strong odour which it exhales in spring, which seems to be a necessary condition of the remedy proving efficient. When a case of hydrophobia presents itself, they reduce to powder some of these, and spread this powder on a piece of bread-and-butter, and make the patient eat it. Every part of the insect must enter into the composition of this powder, which, for this reason, cannot be very fine. During the whole time a patient is under treatment he must avoid drinking as much as possible, or, if his thirst is very great, he must only drink a little pure water; but he may eat. Generally, this remedy produces sleep, which may last for thirty-six hours, and which must not be disturbed. When the patient wakes, he is, they say, cured. The bite must be treated locally with the usual surgical appliances. As to the dose of the remedy, that depends on the age of the patient and the development of the disease. They give, to an adult, immediately after the bite, from two to three beetles; to a child, from one to two; to a person in whom the disease has already declared itself, from four to five. Given to a person in good health, the remedy, however, would not be the least dangerous. In cases in which the symptoms of hydrophobia show themselves some days after the employment of the remedy, they recommence the treatment. They have also tried to prepare this remedy with insects collected not in their larva but in the imago state, by catching them on flowers, and it seems that these attempts have succeeded. According to M. Bog-danoff, in many governorships of the south of Russia the lovers of sporting are in the habit of making their dogs from time to time swallow (as a preservative) half of a Cetonia with bread or a little wine. Every one in that country is persuaded of the efficacy of this means for stopping the development of the disease. In the presence, however, of M. Pasteur's well-known researches and treatment, it would be safer to reject this belief, although it is widespread and deeply rooted, savouring as it does of the rank superstition of another century than this. Two smaller species than the rose beetle, the Cetonia stictica and the Cetojzta hirtel/a, which has yellowish hairs, live on the flowers of thistles. Western Africa, the Cape, Madagascar, &c., are very rich in species of CetonicB. Among the Cetoniadce is the genus Goliathus, gigantic insects which inhabit Africa. Their total length sometimes attains from three to five inches. Their colours are generally a dull white or yellow, which has nothing metallic about it, with spots of a velvety black — these are due to a sort of down of an extreme thin-

THE INSECT WORLD.

440

ness, and which very easily comes off. The head of these enormous Coleoptera is generally cut or scooped out, and is adorned sometimes with one or two horns. Their legs, strong and robust, are armed with spurs, and sometimes present on their exterior sharp indentations, which give to these insects a crabbed physiognomy, which their inoffensive habits are far from justifying. All these horns, and all these teeth, which look so terrible, are nothing, in fact, with a great number of these insects, but simple ornaments. They compose the picturesque uniform of the males. They are equivalent to the bear-skin caps, the flaming helmets, and the bullion-fringed epaulettes of our soldiers. The dress of the female Goliathus is much more modest, as is becoming to the sex. We here represent the Goliathus Derbyana (Fig. 426) and Polyphemus (Fig. 427).

Fig. 425. The Goliaths were formerly excessively rare

Cetonia argentea. in collections, and of a price inaccessible to ordinary amateurs — one single specimen costing as much as twenty pounds. But for some time the Goliaths of the coast of Guinea and of Cape Palmas have been sold to European amateurs at a modest price, thanks to those travellers who, after the example of Dr. Savage, have collected them by hundreds in the countries which produce them. These enormous Coleoptera are seen on the coast of Guinea fluttering about at the top of trees, the flowers ot which they are seeking after. To catch them the trees are felled or else they are shot at with a gun loaded with sand, as is also done for the humming-birds. The species which Dr. Savage made common is the Goliathus cacicus^ of which we represent the male and female (Figs. 428, 429). It is met with on the coast of Guinea. The Goliathus Dricryi (Fig. 430) inhabits Sierra Leone, on the west coast of Guinea. The numerous expeditions which are at the present moment being made into the interior of Africa will not fail to increase the number of species of these splendid insects, which are the ornament of all collections. The group of the Trichiadce, which has in Great Britain and in France a few representatives, is very nearly the same as that of the CetotiiadcB. The Trichiadce have the elytra shorter, the abdomen bigger, and the legs more slender. The Trichius fasciatus, which is black, and covered with an ashy down, with the elytra yellow, and with three black bands, is to be met with in quantities on the garden rose-

COLEOPTERA,

tree, in the months of June and July. The larvae live in the interior of old beams of wood, respecting their surfaces. In a garden, at a few leagues from Paris, a little wooden bridge had been built. 441It seemed on the outside to be in a perfect state of preservation.

Fig. 426.— Goliathus Derbyana Fig. 427.— Goliathus Polyphemus.

Nothing on the exterior would have led one to think it was possible for the oak timbers which composed it to break down. A good many of them, however, broke suddenly. It was then seen that the wood had been scooped out right up to the surface, which was nothing better than a thin sheet, of an imperceptible thinness. All the interior was full of Trichii, in the states of larva, pupa, and perfect insect. The Trichius fasciatus^ sometimes called the Bee Beetle, is very

THE INSECT WORLD.

442

Fig. 428. — Collathus cacicus, male.

common in the environs of Paris. Geoffroy has described it under the rather quaint name of the " Livree d'Ancre," because th^

Fig. 429. Goliathus cacicus, female.

Marquis of Ancre made his servants wear yellow coats, bordered by braid alternately crossed with green and yellow.

The Osmoderma eremita is a large insect, of purple colour,

Fig. 430.— Goliathus Druryi (natural size).

COLEOPTERA. 44^

formerly common in the environs of Paris, but which, now-a-days, cannot be found nearer than Fontainebleau. 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, the whiteness of which this golden insect relieves. One species, much smaller, only one or two lines long, is the Valgus hemiptenis^ which is often met with in 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 with the walking, which is directed by the other legs. One should, above all, notice the artifice which the Valgus 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 unevenly 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.