He seeks a Home.
Most of the short-coated beetles are small. Some of them are an inch long. They are very lively insects. They are very greedy little creatures, too.
Some of these beetles eat only animal food. They are always busy hunting for it. Others of them are fond of mushrooms. Some of them have a bad smell. People do not care to touch them.
Since their hard shell coat is so short, it would be easy to hurt them. No doubt they have this bad smell to keep away creatures that would eat them. The smell keeps them from harm.
The “short-coats” do not all have a bad smell. Some beetles with long coats have this foul odor. There are also beetles that smell like roses, and like musk.
Some of the short-coated beetles curl the hind part of their body over. The end is held up above their backs. If they had a long, hard coat, they could not do that.
You have read about the termites, or white ants.[16] In Brazil people may find one kind of the short-coat beetle living in the nests of the termites.
These beetles that live with the termites are very strange animals. The back part of their body is too large for the front part. It looks like a great ball, and is turned up over the upper part of the back.
These are the only beetles that do not lay eggs and go off and leave them. They keep their eggs in this large, round part of the body until they hatch. Then the little larvæ come out alive.
Why do the ants allow these beetles to live with them? Perhaps it is because they make no trouble and so the termites do not care one way or the other. Perhaps, like the little Aphis,[17] this beetle has a way of making honey; if so, it pays for its house-rent with honey!