. Animate creation : popular edition of "Our living world" : a natural history. Zoology; Zoology. 378 THE SACRED EGYPTIAN SCARAB^US. the creatures cannot crawl in tlie ordinary fasliion, but are obliged to lie on their sides. Tliey are furnished with two terribly trenchant jaws like curved shears, and immediately set to work at their destructive labors. They feed mostly upon the roots of grasses and other plants, and when in great numbers have been known to ruin an entire harvest. Of the Stag Beetle, the largest of the genus Coleoptera., we present a beautiful colored illustration. W
. Animate creation : popular edition of "Our living world" : a natural history. Zoology; Zoology. 378 THE SACRED EGYPTIAN SCARAB^US. the creatures cannot crawl in tlie ordinary fasliion, but are obliged to lie on their sides. Tliey are furnished with two terribly trenchant jaws like curved shears, and immediately set to work at their destructive labors. They feed mostly upon the roots of grasses and other plants, and when in great numbers have been known to ruin an entire harvest. Of the Stag Beetle, the largest of the genus Coleoptera., we present a beautiful colored illustration. When it has attained its full dimensions it is an extremely powerful, and rather formidable insect, its enormous mandibles being able to inliict a very jjainf ul bite, not only on account of the powerful muscles by which they are moved, but in consequence of the antler- like jn-ojections with wliich their tips are armed. These horn-like jaws only belong to the male, those of the female being simply sharp and curved mandibles, in no way conspicuous. The larvae of the Stag Beetle reside in trees into which it burrows with marvellous facility, and as after they have emerged from their holes they api^ear to cling to the familiar neighbor- hood, they may be found \\\)o\\ or near the trees in which they have been bred. From the fonnidable shajje of the mandibles it might be supposed that the Stag Beetle was one of the predaceous species. This, however, is not the case, the food of this fine insect consisting mostly, if not wholly, of the juices of vegetables, which it wounds with the jaws so as to cause the sap to flow. It is true that specimens have been detected in the act of assault- ing other insects, but they never seem to have been observed in the act of feeding upon their victim. Whether the food be of animal or vegetable nature, it is always liquid, and is lapped, or swept up, by a kind of brush which forms part of the mouth, and looks like a double pencil of shining orange-co
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Keywords: ., bookauthorbr, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectzoology
