The Insect World / Being a Popular Account of the Orders of Insects; Together with a Description of the Habits and Economy of Some of the Most Interesting Species

by Louis Figuier

Fig. 424.—Larva and cocoon of the Rose Beetle.

The larva of the Cetonia splendidula—which is the most magnificent found in France—is met with sometimes in the nests of wild bees. In Russia the rose beetle is considered a very efficacious remedy for hydrophobia. In the governorship of Saratow, which is traversed by the Volga, hydrophobia is very frequent, on account of the heats which reign during the whole summer in its arid steppes. The inhabitants, incessantly exposed to be bitten by mad dogs, have tried in succession a great many preparations to remedy the results of these terrible accidents. It appears that the Cetonia, dried and reduced to powder, has produced on many occasions good effects. This is the recipe which an inhabitant of Saratow published in a Russian journal—adding, that he had employed it for thirty years, that not one of the patients treated by him had died, and that his remedy could be employed with success in all the phases of the disease:—In spring they search at the bottom of the nests of the wood ant for certain white larvæ, which they carefully preserve in a pot, together with the earth in which they were found, till the moment of their metamorphosis, which takes place in the month of May. The insect, which is the common rose beetle, is killed, dried, and kept in pots hermetically sealed, so that it may preserve the strong odour which it exhales in spring, which seems to be a necessary condition of the remedy proving efficient. When a case of hydrophobia presents itself, they reduce to powder some of these, and spread this powder on a piece of bread-and-butter, and make the patient eat it. Every part of the insect must enter into the composition of this powder, which, for this reason, cannot be very fine. During the whole time a patient is under treatment he must avoid drinking as much as possible, or, if his thirst is very great, he must only drink a little pure water; but he may eat. Generally, this remedy produces sleep, which may last for thirty-six hours, and which must not be disturbed. When the patient wakes, he is, they say, cured. The bite must be treated locally with the usual surgical appliances.

As to the dose of the remedy, that depends on the age of the patient and the development of the disease. They give, to an adult, immediately after the bite, from two to three beetles; to a child, from one to two; to a person in whom the disease has already declared itself, from four to five. Given to a person in good health, the remedy, however, would not be the least dangerous. In cases in which the symptoms of hydrophobia show themselves some days after the employment of the remedy, they recommence the treatment. They have also tried to prepare this remedy with insects collected not in their larvæ but in the imago state, by catching them on flowers, and it seems that these attempts have succeeded. According to M. Bogdanoff, in many governorships of the south of Russia the lovers of sporting are in the habit of making their dogs from time to time swallow (as a preservative) half of a Cetonia with bread or a little wine. Every one in those countries is persuaded of the efficacy of this means for stopping the development of the disease. One ought not, perhaps, to reject a belief so widespread and deeply rooted without some experiments to guarantee us in doing so, for medicine does not yet possess any remedy against hydrophobia: it might not then be useless to try this.

Two smaller species than the rose beetle, the Cetonia stictica and the Cetonia hirtella, which has yellowish hairs, live on the flowers of thistles. Western Africa, the Cape, Madagascar, &c., are very rich in species of Cetoniæ. Among the Cetoniadæ is the genus Goliathus, gigantic insects which inhabit Africa. Their total length sometimes attains from three to five inches. Their colours are generally a dull white or yellow, which has nothing metallic about it, with spots of a velvety black—these are due to a sort of down of an extreme thin ness, and which very easily comes off. The head of these enormous Coleoptera is generally cut or scooped out, and is adorned sometimes with one or two horns. Their legs, strong and robust, are armed with spurs, and sometimes present on their exterior sharp indentations, which give to these insects a crabbed physiognomy, which their inoffensive habits are far from justifying. All these horns, and all these teeth, which look so terrible, are nothing, in fact, with a great number of these insects, but simple ornaments. They compose the picturesque uniform of the males. They are equivalent to the bear-skin caps, the flaming helmets, and the bullion-fringed epaulettes of our soldiers. The dress of the female Goliathus is much more modest, as is becoming to the sex. We here represent the Goliathus Derbyana ([Fig. 426]) and Polyphemus ([Fig. 427]).

Fig. 425.
Cetonia argentea.

The Goliaths were formerly excessively rare in collections, and of a price inaccessible to ordinary amateurs—one single specimen costing as much as twenty pounds. But for some time the Goliaths of the coast of Guinea and of Cape Palmas have been sold to European amateurs at a modest price, thanks to those travellers who, after the example of Dr. Savage, have collected them by hundreds in the countries which produce them. These enormous Coleoptera are seen on the coast of Guinea fluttering about at the top of trees, the flowers of which they are seeking after. To catch them the trees are felled or else they are shot at with a gun loaded with sand, as is also done for the humming-birds. The species which Dr. Savage made common is the Goliathus cacicus, of which we represent the male and female (Figs. 428, 429). It is met with on the coast of Guinea. The Goliathus Druryi ([Fig. 430]) inhabits Sierra Leone, on the west coast of Guinea. The numerous expeditions which are at the present moment being made into the interior of Africa will not fail to increase the number of species of these splendid insects, which are the ornament of all collections.

The group of the Trichiadæ, which has in this country and in France a few representatives, is very nearly the same as that of the Cetoniadæ. The Trichiadæ have the elytra shorter, the abdomen bigger, and the legs more slender. The Trichius fasciatus, which is black, and covered with an ashy down, with the elytra yellow, and with three black bands, is to be met with in quantities on the garden rose -tree, in the months of June and July. The larvæ live in the interior of old beams of wood, respecting their surfaces. In a garden, at a few leagues from Paris, a little wooden bridge had been built. It seemed on the outside to be in a perfect state of preservation. Nothing on the exterior would have led one to think it was possible for the oak timbers which composed it to break down. A good many of them, however, broke suddenly. It was then seen that the wood had been scooped out right up to the surface, which was nothing better than a thin sheet, of an imperceptible thinness. All the interior was full of Trichii, in the states of larva, pupa, and perfect insect.