Stag beetle

“ This likeness between insect and carriage does not appear so striking at this day owing to a change in the fashion towards a more sombre colour in the vehicles; their funeral blacks, dark blues, and greens being now seldom relieved with bright yellows and reds. The stag-beetle, too, when he goes away with heavy flight always gives one the idea of some kind of machine or vehicle, not like the aerial phaeton of the wasp or hornet, with its graceful lines and strongly-contrasted colours, but an oblong, ponderous, armour-plated car, furnished with a beak, and painted a deep uniform brown. ”

“ This insect (plate E, fig. 5) is quite unmistakable; and, from its very ferocious aspect, would deter many from touching it. But it is very lamb-like in disposition, and sometimes as playful as a lamb. Its numerous jaws can certainly pinch with much violence; but are not used for the purpose of killing other creatures, as might be supposed.
The food of the stag-beetle is simply the juices of plants, which it sweeps up with that little brush-like organ that may be seen in the very centre of the jaws. ”

“ The stag-beetle—when of maximum size, that is to say, for it varies amazingly in this respect—is much the largest beetle which this our island possesses, but though, with its huge, antler-like jaws, it makes a good perennial illustration for all books of popular entomology, its merits seem to end there, for either there is nothing or nothing has yet been observed particularly interesting about it. ”

“ At last a nightingale sang from a little copse hard by, completing my bewitchment—and so my thraldom to dreams was nearly made everlasting. For, it appeared, a man had come softly out of the woods behind me, while I hung over the parapet, and was stealing towards me on tiptoe with clubbed bludgeon.
It was a stag-beetle that saved my life—whereout of might be snatched many little rags of reflections; for it shot whizzing and booming past my ear and startled me to a sudden sideway jump. ”

“ If captured and kindly treated, stag-beetles are said to become tame in a very short time, and to display amusing traits of destructiveness on anything which falls in their way. Their mandibles are very powerful, strong enough to raise up a tumbler when placed under it. As the habits of larger animals are discerned by a glance at their teeth, the huge jaws of the stag-beetle direct us at once to his manner of life. ”

“ It must have a safe shelter that it need not leave until it has become the well-armored insect we now see. The grub of the stag-beetle does [230] in fact live inside the oak, which affords it at once food and lodging. There, in the depths of the tree-trunk, is its inviolable retreat.
“With its two teeth, as hard and sharp as a carpenter’s tool, it cuts away, patiently, bit by bit, the fresh wood imbued with sap. Each fragment thus detached is a mouthful for the worm’s nourishment; but as it is by no means a rich diet there must be a good deal of it to furnish enough nutriment. ”

“ The "stag beetle" of Europe is another strange form, the mandibles of the male being greatly enlarged. From the shape and size of the jaws one would suppose that this insect is predaceous, but it is on the contrary a vegetable feeder, using its great jaws to wound the plant, which causes the sap or juices to flow, upon which it feeds. The jaws of the females are in no way conspicuous. There is also a closely allied species found in the United States, but it is a smaller insect. Many other curious Fig. 8.—Dead-leaf Butterfly. ”

“ The stag-beetle is in colour a dark chestnut shading into black; the males are two inches long, longer and with larger mandibles than the females—in direct contrast to birds of prey, where the female is generally the finer animal. On the ground their movements are sluggish; but when they open their elytra, or wing-cases, and spread out the wings of fine tissue so neatly folded under them, to the span of a couple of inches or more, they can fly very strongly. ”

“ It is no longer a worm—far from it—but it is not yet a stag-beetle, although the outlines of the latter are already discernible.
“The creature is quite motionless, as if dead. The legs, neatly folded over the stomach, are as transparent as crystals; the nippers are pressed close to the breast; the wings, not yet expanded, have the appearance of a short scarf encircling the flanks; and the whole is swathed in swaddling-clothes finer in texture than an onion skin. The entire organism is wrapped in a repose so profound that one might think all life extinct. ”

“ No doubt, if we look at the matter from an absolute rather than a relative point of view, the second of these two explanations is the correct one, for a creature has only to be studied in order to become interesting; but as compared with ants, bees, wasps, and many other insects, beetles, or, at any rate, the vast majority of them, are not so very entertaining in their habits, and the stag-beetle has no superiority in this respect to correspond with its size and uncommon appearance. ”

“ This is the stag-beetle—"stags and does" is the native name for the two sexes; he is probably more abundant in this corner of Hampshire than in any other locality in England, and among the denizens of the Forest there are few more interesting. About four or five o'clock in the afternoon, the ponderous beetle wakes out of his long siesta, down among the roots and dead vegetable matter of a thorny brake or large hedge, and laboriously sets himself to work {70} his way out. He is a slow, clumsy creature, a very bad climber ”

“ The fact that the special characteristics of the male, which we have seen to be variable in the ruff, are also variable among insects, is well exemplified in the case of the stag-beetle, in some males of which the mandibles are far larger than in others. ”

“ In the tropics, where vegetation is more rank and abundant, the beetles are of corresponding strength. The prionus cervicornus takes the place of our stag-beetle in Cayenne. They resemble each other much in appearance and habits, but the exotic beetle is proportionably larger and stronger. In the steaming swamps of that country it may be seen attacking the branch of a tree or shrub with its powerful mandibles, which are edged like a saw, and flying round and round it till it has completely sawn it off. ”

“ An example of the first case is supplied by the larva of the stag-beetle in its endeavour to make itself a convenient hole in which to become a chrysalis. The female larva digs a hole exactly her own size, but the male makes one as long again as himself, so as to allow for the growth of his horns, which will be about the same length as his body. ”

“ There are, however, exceptions to the rule of male insects being smaller than the females: and some of these exceptions are intelligible. Size and strength would be an advantage to the males, which fight for the possession of the females; and in these cases, as with the stag-beetle (Lucanus) , the males are larger than the females. There are, however, other beetles which are not known to fight together, of which the males exceed the females in size ”

“ The Coleoptera are well represented in England as beetles. They have four wings, but the outer pair serve as coverings to the inner ones. They are termed Elytra, and are horny in texture. These beetles are short-lived, but useful as scavengers, and serve to manure the ground by burying objectionable matter. The larvæ of beetles eat tremendously. The stag-beetle is a formidable-looking animal, and the lady-bird is well known as an enemy to the aphides on our rose trees. ”

“ The fact that there are so few records of fighting among male Beetles, and the absence of injury to the highly-polished surfaces of the horns or jaws where these are conspicuously large, seem to indicate that at most no more than a semblance of fighting ever takes place. In a North American Stag Beetle (Lucanus elaphus) the jaws, which are greatly developed, are used, Darwin tells us, for seizing the female, but they do not appear to be employed for this purpose in any other species. ”

“ In this case, it is to be noted, the combatants lacked weapons. With the Stag Beetle it is otherwise, and this species is said to engage in fierce conflicts. Darwin cites an instance where two males were enclosed with one female in a box, when the larger severely pinched the smaller one, until he resigned his pretensions. This being so, it is curious to find that the female, which makes no display of pugnacity, has the stronger jaws. ”

“ Mason went to the boy who gave good advice and asked him for his opinion. “Don’t swap it for your catty,” said the boy who gave good advice, “because Bell’s stag beetle may not win after all; and even if it does stag beetles won’t be the rage for very long; but a catty is always a catty, and yours is the best in the school.” Mason took the advice. When the races came off, the stag beetles were so erratic that no prize was awarded, and they immediately ceased to be the rage. The rage for stag beetles was succeeded by a rage for secret alphabets. ”

“ The mandibles, (b) or upper jaws, in the biting insects, are instruments for cutting the food in pieces. When we bite our food, the movement of our jaw is upwards and downwards; but in the insect it is like that of a pair of scissors, or from side to side! These jaws are sometimes frightful-looking instruments, resembling, in the stag-beetle, horns; and their power is proportionally great. Although their general use is to masticate or crush the food for the insect, this apparatus is often employed as a formidable weapon of [372] defence, or offence ”

“ Later writers have, however, for many reasons, ascribed this to the larva of the stag beetle.
23 Notodonta dromedarius.—This Notodonta is called Dromedary, from having two crests, similar to humps, on its thorax.
24 Sphinx elpenor.—The caterpillars of the Elephant feed on the plant called Ladies’ Bedstraw, (Galium palustre) , from which they are often shaken by the wind into the water. When this happens, they dexterously turn themselves on their backs, make head and tail meet, and float in this posture till they can contrive to save themselves by clinging to some part of the plant. ”

“ Then they lay their eggs in it, come up to the surface, shovel back the earth till the dead body is quite covered over, and then fly away. And when the eggs hatch, the little grubs which come out from them feed upon the carcass.
Among the largest beetles are those called stag-beetles because the jaws of the male look very much like the horns of a stag. Those of the female are much smaller, but are so sharp and strong that they can really give a rather severe bite. ”

“ Large horned beetle—This beetle, variously called by the Cherokee crawfish, deer or buck, on account of its branching horns, is probably the “flying stag” of early travelers. Says Timberlake: “Of insects, the flying stag is almost the only one worthy of notice. ”

“ We have our bones inside, and our flesh outside, but beetles have their bones outside and their flesh inside. Sometimes you may see beetles crushed flat in the road, but often they are trodden on or run over without being killed; and the reason for this is that their hard, outside skeletons prevent their soft insides from being altogether squashed up. Once I ran over a Stag-beetle on my bicycle—it was nearly dark {93} at the time, and I was over him before I could get out of his way. ”

“ The grub of the Great Water Beetle spends all his time (three or four years, too, I expect) in {96} the water, and I think he feeds on decaying plants, but I am not sure of this. Some people say that the Stag-beetle uses his great antlers to crush twigs and leaves so as to get the juice. This may be so, but I have never seen him do it.
The Musk Beetle
Who has a very nice smell
Another big and beautiful insect is the Musk Beetle. ”

“ Lucanidae (Stag-beetles) .—Labrum indistinct, fixed; mentum not excised; antennae not curled in repose, with but little coadaptation of the terminal joints; the elytra entirely cover the dorsal surface of the abdomen. The Stag-beetles are well known on account of the extraordinary development of the mandibles in the male sex, these organs being in some cases nearly as long as the whole of the rest of the Insect, and armed with projections or teeth that give the Insects a most formidable appearance. ”

“ There are at present between 500 and 600 species of stag-beetles known; the Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan regions being richest in them. Australia possesses many remarkable and aberrant forms. In the Ceratognathini—a group well represented in New Zealand as well as in Australia—the structure of the antennae is like that of the Scarabaeidae, rather than of the Lucanidae. ”

“ In the very dissimilar arrangement which draws in the fore, middle, and hind legs toward the body it is self-evident that their extent of action is also different. This arrangement seems to be most yielding on the fore legs, where the hips, to confine ourselves to the stag-beetles, can be turned backward and forward 60° from 104the middle or normal position, and therefore describe on the whole a curve of 120°. ”

“ As soon as she has secured the species, she suffers the individual gradually to decay. Hardly is the season of love over before the stag loses his proud antlers, the bird its song and much of its beauty, the plants their fairest colors. The butterfly sheds its wings and expires, while alone and unweakened it might have lived through half the year. This is the course of nature in the development of beings out of one another ”