Insects abroad : being a popular account of foreign insects, their structure, habits, and transformations / by J.G. Wood.

  • Wood, J. G. (John George), 1827-1889.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insects abroad : being a popular account of foreign insects, their structure, habits, and transformations / by J.G. Wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    been found dead, floating in the Gaboon River, opposite Prince’s Island. Nothing was known of its habits until lately, when travellers have succeeded in capturing a tolerable number of specimens, one of which, now in the British Museum, is singularly valuable. That the Cetonia larvae enclose themselves when full fed in earthen or wooden cocoons is well known, and naturalists were therefore anxious to know what kind of a cocoon could be constructed by the enormous Goliath Beetle. The question has been set at rest by the discovery of a cocoon of the present species, which is now in the nest-room of the British Museum. It is oval, about as large as a swan’s egg, and has wonderfully thin walls. The most remarkable point about it is the thick belt with which it is encircled, probably for the purpose of Fio. 66.—Cocoons of Scarabseus and Goliath. strengthening it. How this belt was made is to me a mystery A larva which inhabits a cocoon must of necessity make that cocoon from the inside, and how it is possible for a creature I which builds its cocoon around itself to form an external I strengthening belt is a riddle that has not yet been explained. The fact is patent-the means are unknown; and when those means are discovered, we shall have solved a very interesting problem in Natural History. . , , The above illustration of this invaluable specimen is taken from my “Homes without Hands,” published by Messrs. Longman and Co. As, on account of the size of the cocoon, 1