Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 26, 2025
Three species compose the population: the common Jardinière, or Golden Beetle, the usual inmate of our gardens; Procrustes coriaceus, the sombre and powerful explorer of the grassy thickets at the foot of walls; and the rare Purple Carabus, who trims the ebony of his wing-cases with metallic violet. I feed them on Snails, after partly removing the shell.
But the hunter knows the weak point of the horn-clad prey, the fine skin protected by the wing-cases. By means of attacks which the assailant renews as soon as they are repulsed by the assailed, the Carabus contrives to raise the cuirass slightly and to slip his head beneath it. From the moment that the pincers have made a gash in the vulnerable skin, the Rhinoceros is lost.
"What is the use of having forty-four feet," he cried, "if the centipede can not get on faster than a carabus, which only has six?" L'Encuerado could alone explain this mystery; but still he kept silence. "Are these creatures poisonous, M. Sumichrast?" "It is said so; but some species that, for instance, which you are examining may be handled without danger."
If this had happened in a higher order of the animal world, it would make one's flesh creep to watch the Carabus half immersed in the big Cockchafer and rooting out his entrails. I test the eviscerator with a more difficult quarry. This time the victim is Oryctes nasicornis, the powerful Rhinoceros Beetle, an invincible giant, one would think, under the shelter of his armour.
The most powerful of them, the Sacred Beetle and the Pimelia, are easy-going creatures which, so far from molesting him, are fine booty for his burrow. Can he be threatened by the birds? It is very doubtful. As a Carabus, he is saturated with acrid humours which must make his body a far from pleasing mouthful.
The most remarkable are a Carabus of the beautiful colours of the hispanus, but with narrow striped cases to the wings, and a large Prionus: the joints of the feet, in this latter, are short and cylindrical, constituting a distinction from the whole family of the Cerambycinæ; in every other respect it is unquestionably a Prionus, and may be called Pr.
Bossi thinks it either Turkish or Arabic, and probably introduced into the European languages by the Moors. Mr. Edward Everett, in a note to his Plymouth oration, considers that the true origin of the word is given in "Ferrarii Origines Linguae Italicae," as follows: "Caravela, navigii minoris genus. Lat. Carabus: Grsece Karabron."
After a discussion on the subject, we left the point entirely to l'Encuerado, and I made my way down to the bottom of the ravine. Upon lifting up some stones and pieces of bark, I discovered several species of the Carabus family. Lucien caught on a shrub some insects of a very peculiar shape; at the first glance, Sumichrast recognized them as tettigones.
The entomology of Tallum, like its botany, was Siberian, Arctic types occurring at lower elevations than in the wetter parts of Sikkim. Predaceous genera were very rare, as Carabus and Staphylinus, so typical of boreal regions. Bupretis, Elater, and Blaps were found but rarely.
And this is the case with the Carabus. To see him so richly adorned, who would not wish to find him a fine subject for investigation, one worthy of history, a subject such as humbler natures provide with lavish generosity? From this ferocious ransacker of entrails we expect nothing of the kind. His art is that of slaying. We may without trouble observe him at his bandit's work.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking