Insects abroad : being a popular account of foreign insects, their structure, habits, and transformations . to be covered with a multitude of pitsabout as large as those in a ladys thimble, a few of them, how-ever, being much larger than the others. The elytra are warm yellow, and down their middle runs alarge black patch, shaped as shown in the illustration. Generally,a narrow line of warm orange runs along the edge of the elytraand skirts the black patch, but the variation in the flnpth and A GIGANTIC BEETLE. 101 extent of colour is so great, that scarcely any two specimens areexactly alike.
Insects abroad : being a popular account of foreign insects, their structure, habits, and transformations . to be covered with a multitude of pitsabout as large as those in a ladys thimble, a few of them, how-ever, being much larger than the others. The elytra are warm yellow, and down their middle runs alarge black patch, shaped as shown in the illustration. Generally,a narrow line of warm orange runs along the edge of the elytraand skirts the black patch, but the variation in the flnpth and A GIGANTIC BEETLE. 101 extent of colour is so great, that scarcely any two specimens areexactly alike. Some, for example, have the elytra nearly allblack, some are almost entirely brown, and some have scarcelyany black about them. It has already been mentioned that inthe Lucanidas the males are liable to extreme variation in size,and it is rather remarkable that in this genus the females areprincipally varied in colour. This Beetle inhabits China andNorthern India, and it is thought that certain well-markedvarieties occur within certain geographical limits, as is the casewith the Chinese Tiger Fig. 46.— Odontolabria Cuvera.(Blauk aud warm yellow.) There are several acknowledged species of the genus, thelargest of which is Odoiitolabris dux, a really gigantic only is it four inches in length, but it is broad, sturdy, andthick-set, and must be enormously powerful. When I first sawthe splendid specimen in the British Museum, it recalled to mymind a saying of a well-known German physiologist, who occu-pied the table next to mine in the dissecting-room. Ach, hemuttered, sot to voce, I wish a peetle so pig as a lopster. Theincident had almost been forgotten, when the sight of thissplendid insect recalled it to my mind, and I could not help thinking that if Dr. C could only have possessed the insect before it was pinned and dried, his desire for a peetle so pig as 102 INSECTS ABROAD. a lopsteT, would have been gratified. The colour of this largeinsect is wholly b
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectinsects, bookyear1883
