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Updated: May 4, 2025
Elytron of Buprestis? The slate of Stonesfield has been shown by Mr. Lonsdale to lie at the base of the Great Oolite. It contains some pebbles of a rock very similar to itself, and which may be portions of the deposit, broken up on a shore at low water or during storms, and redeposited.
The Giant Scarites does not stir for an hour, while the Smooth-skinned Scarites, a pigmy, wearies my persistence in turning him over; the large Cloudy Buprestis submits to my manoeuvres for a long period, whereas the Glittering Buprestis, a pigmy again, obstinately refuses to do so.
Its manner of action, as described by Léon Dufour, much resembles that of the Sphex, and it would be superfluous to describe it. The only fact which I wish to mention, and which has been put out of doubt by the illustrious naturalist, is this: the Buprestis are paralysed, not dead; all the joints of the antennæ and legs remain flexible and the intestines in good condition.
The armour of a Buprestis, the fat blubber of a Rosechafer-grub, the contortions of a caterpillar present almost insuperable obstacles to the success of a sting which it is not in my power to direct. The prick is given in the median line of the fore-legs. The effect is overwhelming.
I should add that, to achieve success, we must have a subject with a concentrated ganglionic column, such as the Weevil, the Buprestis, the Dung-beetle and others. Paralysis is then obtained with but a single prick, made at the point which the Cerceris has revealed to us, the point at which the corselet joins the rest of the thorax.
At most, in a few rare instances, the grub leaves the Buprestis the trouble of piercing a leaf of wood so thin as to be translucent. But, if easy paths are necessary to the insect, protective ramparts are no less needed for the safety of the nymphosis; and the larva plugs the liberating channel with a fine paste of masticated wood, very different from the ordinary sawdust.
It might have been foreseen. The Buprestis, a lover of the burning sunshine, is affected by the cold bath in a different degree from the Scarites, who prowls about by night and spends his day in the basement. A fall of a few degrees in temperature takes the chilly insect by surprise and has no effect upon the one accustomed to the coolness underground.
The cylindrical exit-way passes through the strata of wood along the shortest line, almost normally, after a slight bend which connects the vertical with the horizontal, a curve with a radius large enough to allow the stiff Buprestis to tack about without difficulty. It ends in a blind-alley, less than a twelfth of an inch from the surface of the wood.
Then the fore-legs move; and a quarter of an hour has not elapsed before the other legs are struggling. The activity of the insect made motionless by the concussion of a shock would reawaken in precisely the same fashion. As for the Buprestis, he is in a state of inertia so profound that at first I really believe him to be dead.
The larvæ of the Buprestis and the Capricornis, which burrow in the trunks of trees, are similarly shaped. Directly it issues from the egg the wriggling creature makes off at random with an activity we should hardly expect in one so young. It wanders hither and thither, eager to find food and shelter as soon as possible. Within twenty-four hours it has usually attained both.
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