SOME CURIOUS BEETLES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4768, 7 October 1893, Page 1

SOME CURIOUS BEETLES.

(New York Tim,) Among beetles there are great variety and some carious forms, as well as habits, that gire muoh interest to the: study of them. They feed on everything, literally : on plants, on flesh, alive or dead, and oa meat and even lard ; on wood, stone and metals; the kerosene oil barrel is boted through and the oil is lost} soapstone is chewed up, and lead and eren iron pipes are bored through and made useless, and one speoies actually has attacked the steel rails of the railroad, and done injury to them. They are found from pole to pole, but flourish mostly in the hot tropical climates, where they are of the largest size. THS ENTOMOLOGIST'S CINBCS of them includes nearly an even 100,000 species. They are conspicuous by their horny-sheathea wings which give the name coleoptera (from the Greek JcoUob, a sheath, and ptera; a wing) to them. Theße wingcovers are not used in flight, but for the protection of the light, gauzy, true wings, and are opened and spread during flight sidewise. TMb large order is divided into genera and species by the difference between the legs and the antenna*, the jointß of the lower limbs being divided into varying joints (tarsi), and the antenna are similarly differentiated. Some speoies have brilliant colourings, others cany electric lights, and are thuß made use of as torches and ornaments for women's headdress. This class includes the modest glow-worm. Some are medicinal in th«ir character, as the well-known beetle whose' bodies, crushed into a paste, furnish the blistering matter used by physicians. Some are used for dye stuffs, and some are eaten as food, as is the gigantic insect found in Africa, where it is fried and served up precisely like the similar (almost insect) animal known as the soft crab. DIVERSITY OF HABITS AND FOBM. Certainly there is no other class of insects that has such an interesting diver* sity of form and habita as the beetle* There is the tiger beetle, which has a pair of mandibles or jaws worthy of its ferocious name, and by which it seizes its prey and cuts it up for more easy devouring. Tho stag beetle, another of these formidably armed creatures, has Bharp pronged mandibles one-third of its length, and appears much like a lobster, with itß enormous claws. There is the bombardier beetle, which has a magazine gun within its anatomy that carneß eighteen charges and no more, and when disturbed discharges these with noise and smoke, under cover of which it escapes. A considerable genus as to numbers is that of the wood borers, some of which first attaching themselves to a tree, and fitting their jaws, proceed to fly rapidly round and round, and so bore a deep hole in the wood for the deposition of their eggs. The naturalist on the Amazon tells how these insects whirl themselves so swiftly as to be lost to sight in the stream of dust which escapes from the wood* There are many other boxers well known to the fruit growers, which penetrate trees and quickly destroy them, rendering the patient work and waiting to grow an' orchard unavailing. There are diving beetles that catch fish, and carry down with them into the water a supply of air to breathe while at work. The sexton beetles spend their lives burying dea&animals, in which, when they are well covered up, they leave jusb a score of eggs in each, the young beetles feeding on this provision. A gang of these sextons will bury the carcaßß of a mouse in a few minutes, and they have been known to completely bury I a rabbit in a few hours by undermining it and causing it to drop into the hole toey have made with their strong digging cl»we. There is | THE SACRED BXXTLB OF IQTJT, so called because it was considered tin emblem of fertility, and thus worshipped I by the curious fellah* of that Curious lindj and this from its habit of rolling little balls in which its eggs are hidden, and burying them in the soil, where the crops might feed upon this food. This stout, amazingly strong beetle may be seen on | the roads anywhere in the Bummer, rolling I these ballß of manure with great labour, -and with instinct sufficient to call help when the path is too steep for one to do •the work. The long horned beetles have horns three inches long, the purpose ot which seems to be to search, the bottoms of the deep holes bored in the pine trees when laying their egge, in order to steal

another ceahior itn ■ vm eggs, if the egga have not already >fen do waited. We nißy think of this robbet <j; oohera' labour sighing to find itself anticipated, and obliged to go to work and boro its own hole by honest labour. There are beetles that , devour bacon and hams, and j WOKKT THE HOUSEKEEPER ' by their unwelcome misahief. Another equally hatefnl to the housekeeper is a Bpeciea that cuts the carpets into shreds ; another cuts the fur from ekinß and makes a wreok of this costly clothing. There are j beetles that bore into the pe&a and beans— j theao are known as weevils ; and others of this genus ruin the hopes of the plum and cherry growera by laying their eggs in j the^e luscious fruits. Some beetles that feed upon leaves are thin-bodied and coloured like tho leaf, so that, lying still, they are difficult to p9rceive. Others live wholly underground and have no eyes— to them useleas organß. One kind of beetle has an apparatus like a skunk's, and when met with in a garden, -where they most do congregate, the inaect rears upon its hind legs, waves it 3 antenna, and opens its jaws in a threatening manner, finally discharging itß vile odour aa a skunk doeß. There is a do-called "pill-beetlo," which roila itself into a email b&ll when alarmed, and lies as if dead until the danger is past. For thia habit they are also called mimic beetles. Another insect ,is the woodborer, that in the night comeß out o£ the furniture, in which it has bored hiding places; and, snapping with the jaws, emits the ticking sounds that alarm the superstitious, being held in much dread as presaging a coming I death in the family.