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I know in my neighbourhood one Dung-beetle and one alone who also works among carrion. This is Onthophagus ovatus, LIN., a constant frequenter of dead Moles and Rabbits. But the dwarf undertaker does not on that account scorn stercoraceous fare: he feasts upon it like the other Onthophagi. Perhaps there is a twofold diet here: the bun for the adult; the highly-spiced, far-gone meat for the grub.
Bates that the horns do not differ in any manner corresponding with the more important characteristic differences between the several subdivisions of the family: thus within the same section of the genus Onthophagus, there are species which have a single horn, and others which have two.
Onitis furcifer, processes of anterior femora of the male, and on the head and thorax of the female. Onthophagus. Onthophagus rangifer, sexual differences of; variations in the horns of the male. Ophidia, sexual differences of. Ophidium. Opossum, wide range of, in America. Optic nerve, atrophy of the, caused by destruction of the eye.
The muck-raker would do honour to the jeweller's show-cases. For the rest, our own Dung-beetles, though usually modest in their attire, also have a leaning toward luxurious ornament. One Onthophagus decorates his corselet with Florentine bronze; another wears garnets on his wing-cases.
The nymph of the Onthophagus presents "a strange paraphernalia of horns and spurs which the organism has produced in a moment of ardour a luxurious panoply which vanishes in the adult." The nymph of the Oniticella also decks itself in "a temporary horn, which departs when it emerges."
In Van Diemen's Land, however, I found four species of Onthophagus, two of Aphodius, and one of a third genus, very abundant under the dung of cows; yet these latter animals had been then introduced only thirty-three years.
The Phanæus, according to MacLeay, distinguished by the total absence of claws from the feet, is peculiar to the warmer parts of America: Onthophagus is not met with along the shore, but is found in the interior. A golden-green Copris is a great rarity.
What then is the use of the enormous fan-like structure of the male antennæ? The seven-leaved apparatus is for the Pine-chafer what his long vibrating horns are to the Cerambyx and the panoply of the head to the Onthophagus and the forked antlers of the mandibles to the Stag-beetle. Each decks himself after his manner in these nuptial extravagances.
On the whole, as far as I could judge, the females of those Prionidae, in which the sexes differ, are coloured more richly than the males, and this does not accord with the common rule in regard to colour, when acquired through sexual selection. Chalcosoma atlas. Copris isidis. Phanaeus faunus. Dipelicus cantori. Onthophagus rangifer, enlarged.
With very few exceptions, the latter has no representatives in our climes. I have mentioned the little Oval Onthophagus as a lover of carrion corruption; and my memory does not recall any other example of the kind. We have to go to the other world to find such tastes.
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