Bubastis

“ In some places the patient is supposed to be possessed by a goddess instead of by an evil spirit. A goat, cock or a male buffalo is offered to the goddess in the same way as to an evil spirit.
In some villages, when there is an outbreak of a serious epidemic, it is customary to drive a buffalo beyond the village boundary, with the disease on his back. The back of the buffalo which is chosen for this purpose is marked with a trident in red lead and covered with a piece of black cloth, on which are laid a few grains of adad and an iron nail. ”

“ The cleanliness and freshness of the Buprestes whom she buries in her lair incline one to believe that she must seize these Beetles at the moment when they are leaving the wooden galleries in which their final metamorphosis has taken place. But what inconceivable instinct urges her, a creature that lives solely on the nectar of flowers, to procure, in the face of a thousand difficulties, animal food for carnivorous children which she will never see, and to take up her post on utterly dissimilar trees, which conceal deep down in their trunks the insects destined to become her prey? ”

“ 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 Buprestes, as zealous as the Longicorns in the destruction of trees, whether sound or ailing, tell us the same tale as the Cerambyx- and Saperda-beetles. The Bronze Buprestis (B. ænea) is an inmate of the black poplar. Her larva gnaws the interior of the trunk. For the nymphosis it installs itself near the surface in a flattened, oval cell, which is prolonged at the back by the wandering-gallery, firmly packed with wormed wood, and in front by a short, slightly curved vestibule. A layer of wood not a twenty-fifth of an inch thick is left intact at the end of the vestibule. ”

“ Like all the carnaria, a sagacious instinct prompts him to kill in provision for coming as well as for present hunger. This is the reason that Buffon has stigmatized him as “unnecessarily cruel.”
“The bound with which he throws himself upon his prey,” says an English naturalist, “is as wonderful in its extent as it is terrible in its effects.” Pennant justly observes that the distance which it clears in this deadly leap is scarcely credible. Man is a mere puppet in his gripe; and the Indian buffalo is not only borne down by the ferocious beast, but carried off by his enormous strength. ”

“ It is relieved of a portion of the parasitic ticks, so common on the hides of thick-skinned animals, by means of the red-beaked rhinoceros birds, Buphaga erythrorhynca, a dozen or more of which may be seen partly perched on its horns and partly moving about on its back, and picking up the ticks on which they feed. The hunter is often guided by these birds in his search for the buffalo, but oftener still they give timely warning to their host of the dangerous proximity of the hunter, and have thus earned the title of “the buffalo’s guardian birds.” ”

“ He has remarked that the ruminants constitute baits for flies; therefore he never leaves these animals, hops about on their backs and delivers them from annoying parasites; the buffaloes, who recognise this service, allow the bird to wander quietly over their hide. The Buphaga, who gives himself up entirely to this kind of chase, is often called the Beef-eater. He is only found in the society of flocks, of camels, buffaloes, or oxen. He settles on the back, legs, and snouts of these living baits. They remain passive even when he opens the skin in order to draw out the flies’ larva ”

“ Bufo would almost as soon find himself at the bottom of a well as upon a dusty road in blazing sunshine. His day is the night. He is not particular about the moon. All he asks is that the night be warm, that the dew lay the dust and dampen the grass, and that the insects be out in numbers. At night the snakes are asleep, and so are most of those ugly, creaking beasts with rolling iron feet that come crushing along their paths. ”

“ As for the Buprestis, he is in a state of inertia so profound that at first I really believe him to be dead. He recovers during the night; and next day I find him in possession of his usual activity. The ether experiment, which I took care to stop at the moment when it produced the desired effect, has not been fatal to him; but it has had much more serious consequences for him than for the Geotrupes. The insect more sensitive to the alarm due to concussion or to a fall of temperature is also the more sensitive to the action of ether. ”

“ This bird can not be said to depend entirely on the insects on that animal, for its hard, hairless skin is a protection against all except a few spotted ticks; but it seems to be attached to the beast, somewhat as the domestic dog is to man; and while the buffalo is alarmed by the sudden flying up of its sentinel, the rhinoceros, not having keen sight, but an acute ear, is warned by the cry of its associate, the 'Buphaga Africana'. ”

“ The insect has already shown us this. 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.
We will leave on one side, as insufficiently investigated, the influence of the bodily mass and remember only this fact, that it is possible, by a very simple artifice, to reduce a bird to a condition of apparent death. ”

“ As far as we know, this bee-eating is Bufo’s one fault; to counterbalance it he devours millions of harmful insects, and so assuredly saves the world thousands of bushels of fruit and vegetables. We will not say that Bufo is greedy in eating. It is true that he swallows insects ceaselessly and swiftly, so much so that a grasshopper’s legs, or some other creature’s antennæ, may sometimes be seen sticking out of a toad’s mouth, while the carcass is well down his throat—but we will not be hard on him ”

“ Of the two, we may find the toad the more interesting animal, as among its kinsfolk are some very remarkable families.
Mr. Bufo is a citizen of the world, except of the severely cold polar regions. He hops through the tropics and the temperate zones, and goes pretty well up into the polar regions; an inoffensive, gentle, humble, useful, and generally utterly silent creature. No person is faultless, and Bufo is not superior to humans in that no evil may be laid to his charge. ”

“ The Buprestis has his legs symmetrically folded against his chest and belly; the Geotrupes has his outspread, stretched in disorder, rigid and as though attacked by catalepsy. You could not tell if they were dead or alive.
They are not dead. In a minute or two, the Geotrupes' tarsi twitch, the palpi quiver, the antennæ wave gently to and fro. 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. ”

“ The buried Buprestes, like those whom I have seized in the grasp of their kidnappers, are always deprived of any sign of life; in a word, they are decidedly dead. I was surprised to remark that, no matter when these corpses were dug up, they not only preserved all their freshness of colouring, but their legs, antennæ, palpi, and the membranes uniting the various parts of the body remained perfectly supple and flexible. ”

“ The exit-channel is nearly always bored completely; the window by which the insect escapes opens directly upon the outside world. 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. ”

“ The sleeping buffalo on the further side of the bush, hearing the noise, sprang to his feet, and for a second, not knowing what to do, stood still. At that instant the huge rhinoceros blundered right on to him, and getting his horn beneath his stomach gave him such a fearful dig that the buffalo was turned over on to his back, while his assailant went a most amazing cropper over his carcase. ”

“ It is as follows: “The buboes called pestilential are most fatal and acute, especially those which are seen occurring about Libya, Egypt, and Syria, and which are mentioned by Dionysius Curtus. Dioscorides and Posidonius make much mention of them in the plague which occurred in their time in Libya; they say it was accompanied by acute fever, pain, and prostration of the whole body, delirium, and the appearance of large and hard buboes, which did not suppurate, not only in the accustomed parts, but also in the groins and armpits.” ”

“ Bufo when, brigand-like, he can stand by the highway of the bees returning laden with wealth of honey and entering their waxen city. He holds his captives for no ransom, he scarcely stays to kill them, but swallows them alive and whole, and digests them later. ”

“ Buphaga, bū′fā-ga, n. a small genus of African perching birds, nearly related to the starlings, feeding on the larvæ of gadflies and the like, which they find on the backs of cattle, camels, &c.—Also Beef-eater and Ox-pecker. [Gr., bous, an ox, phagein, to eat.]
Buprestis, bū-pres′tis, n. a genus of beetles, typical of a large family, Buprestidæ, those occurring in warmer countries having lively colour and metallic sheen—some known as Golden Beetles. ”

“ We should be perplexed by the same question in respect of a multitude of insects, some of which remain motionless while others do not; and we could not possibly foresee what would happen from the genus of the subject, its form, or its way of living.
Buprestis tenebrionis, for example, exhibits a persistent inertia. Will it be the same, because of similarity of structure, with other members of the same group? Not at all. My chance finds provide me with the Brilliant Buprestis (B. rutilans, FAB.) , and the Nine-spotted Buprestis (Ptosima novemmaculata, FAB.) . The first resists all my attempts. ”

“ The dorsal plates of the abdomen are usually soft and colourless in beetles, but in Buprestidae they are often extremely brilliant. The metallic colour in these Insects is not due to pigment, but to the nature of the surface. Buprestidae appear to enjoy the hottest sunshine, and are found only where there is much summer heat. Australia and Madagascar are very rich in species and in remarkable forms of the family, while in Britain we possess only ten species, all of which are of small size, and nearly all are excessively rare. The family is remarkably rich in fossil forms ”

“ When all was ready the buffalo hunter would attract the attention of the herd by strange antics, and then begin to call: “Hoo-hoo-hoo-ini-uh-ini-uh.” Men and women concealed behind rocks began to yell; and the buffalo, terrified, ran with ever increasing speed toward the decoy, who led them toward the precipice. The herd, which might vary in number from one hundred and fifty to ten thousand, would rush blindly forward and plunge over the wall to death in the shallow water beneath. ”

“ A wounded buffalo in thick bush is considered to be about as nasty a customer as any one may desire to tackle; for, its vindictive indomitable courage and extraordinary cunning are a very formidable combination, as a long list of fatalities bears witness. Its favourite device—so old hunters will tell you—is to make off down wind when hit, and after going for some distance, come back again in a semicircle to intersect its own spoor, and there under good cover lie in wait for those who may follow up. ”

“ The Buprestidae are distinguished from the Elateridae by the immobility of the prosternal process in the mesosternal cavity and by the absence of the lateral processes at the hind corners of the prothorax. Many tropical Buprestidae are of large size (fig. 19) , and exhibit magnificent metallic colours; their elytra are used as ornaments in human dress. The larvae are remarkable for their small head, very broad thorax, with reduced legs, and narrow elongate abdomen. They feed by burrowing in the roots and stems of plants. ”

“ Nature finds a Vent this open Way to disengage her self from a pernicious Enemy.
THE Number of Buboes was uncertain, sometimes one only appeared, at others, which was most commonly, two broke out at once; nay, there were met with Instances wherein all the Glands capable of it were tumified. Many Buboes at a Time infallibly demonstrated the Aggravation, and Dispersion of the virulent Taint; and on the contrary, but few shewed the Poison to be not so prevalent, more contracted, and brought to a narrower Compass for Expulsion. ”

“ Bumps thought they must be approaching the city. They were pushing their way through a little thicket—Bunny hurrying on ahead, as usual—when Bumps heard the hiss of a snake. He looked around quickly to see where it came from, and right in front of him on the ground he saw a poor little bird held spellbound by the glittering eye of an ugly snake, so frightened that it could neither move nor fly. Without stopping to think that the snake might injure him, Bumps seized a big stick and killed it. Instantly the poor little bird was transformed into a beautiful Fairy, not much bigger than a robin. ”