As other remarkable species of Scarabæi we represent the Scarabæus enema ([Fig. 441]), with strong horns, the Megacerus chorinæus ([Fig. 443]), the Megalosoma anubis (Figs. [444] and [445]), and the Dynastes Hercules ([Fig. 446]).
The last family of the Scarabæidæ contains the Lucanidæ, or Stag Beetles. These Coleoptera are of great size, and their head is armed with enormous robust mandibles, which give them a ferocious air, which their inoffensive habits do not in any way justify. They live in half-rotten trees, the destruction of which they accelerate. Their mandibles, of such prodigious size only in the male, are of more inconvenience to them than they are of use, as they impede their flight. Their strength enables them to raise considerable weights, but they make no other use of them than to show their strength, which is enormous. They do not attack other insects, and live only on vegetable juices.
The common Stag Beetle (Figs. 447 [121] and 448) attains to a length of two inches, or more, including its mandibles, and is of a dark brown chestnut colour. They are met with during the months of May, June, and July, in large forests, climbing along trees and hooking themselves on to the trunks by their mandibles. Charles De Geer says that the Stag Beetle imbibes the honeyed liquid which is found on oak trees, a tree it particularly seeks after, which has caused it to be called in Swedish Ek-Oxe (Oak ox). It is supposed that it eats the leaves also. It sometimes attacks insects. Westwood says that it has been seen to descend from a tree carrying a caterpillar in its mandibles. Swammerdam had one which followed him like a dog when he offered it honey. They only fly in the evening, holding themselves nearly straight, so as not to see-saw. Their larvæ—which are whitish, with russety heads, live in the interior of trees, their existence in that state lasting nearly four years. Many naturalists think that the larva of the Lucanus was the Cossus of the Romans, which figured on the tables of the rich patricians, and particularly of Lucullus.
Fig. 442.—The Sacred Scarabæus of the Egyptians (Ateuchus sacer).
Fig. 443.—Megacerus chorinæus.