In the Indies, and in China, the women use for dressing their hair with, or as ear-rings, another Coleopteron of the same tribe, which begins even to be employed for this purpose by the women of the south of France. It is a Buprestis, of splendid colours, and of metallic brightness. Linnæus, as we said above, gave to it, wrongly, the name of Buprestis, which among the ancients served to designate a very different insect, the Meloë, of the family of the Cantharidæ; but modern naturalists have allowed this illegitimate title.
The Buprestidæ walk heavily, but fly with the greatest ease during the heat of the sun, and settle on the trunks of trees exposed to its rays. In Europe, and especially in the North, they are very rare, and of very small size. They must be looked for on birch-trees, whose white colour seems to attract them. In the hottest parts of the world they are very abundant, of large dimensions, and adorned with sparkling colours. They do not jump, and are not endowed with the phosphorescent property. Their larvæ have no legs, are elongate, whitish, of a fleshy consistency, with the first ring of their bodies very much broadened. They live in the trunks of trees, between the bark and the wood, hollowing out for themselves irregular galleries, and remaining sometimes in this state for ten years before metamorphosing. Laporte de Castelnau and Gory have described and made drawings of about 1,300 species of Buprestidæ. [Fig. 555] represents the Buprestis imperialis. The Buprestis albosparsa, the genera Julodis, the Chrysochroas, and the Trachys belong also to the great family of Buprestidæ. The Cleridæ are connected with the preceding. They have the thorax narrower than the elytra, and rather long; their integuments are less solid than those of the Elateridæ and the Buprestidæ. The latter are phytophagous, the former carnivorous. The principal type of this family is the Clerus formicarius, russety, with the head and legs black, whose larva lives at the expense of the larvæ of the weevil. Another genus, the Necrobia, which lives on dried animal matter, has become celebrated, as it was the cause of the salvation of the greatest entomologist of France. The name of Necrobia (from [Greek: nekros] and [Greek: biôs]) does not mean "which lives on dead bodies," but it means "life in death." Here is the story of which this name is destined to preserve the remembrance, and which Latreille himself has related in his "Histoire des Insectes." Before 1792, Latreille was known only from some memoirs which he had published on insects. He was then priest at Brives-la-Gaillarde, and was arrested with the curés of Limousin, who had not taken the oath. These unfortunates were then taken to Bordeaux in carts, to be transported to Guyana. Arrived at Bordeaux in the month of June, they were incarcerated in the prison of the Grand Séminaire till a ship should be ready to take them on board. In the meanwhile, the 9th Thermidor arrived, and caused the execution of the sentence which condemned the priests who had not taken the oath to transportation to be for a while suspended. However, the prisons emptied themselves but slowly, and those who had been condemned had none the less to go into exile, only their transportation had been put off till the spring.
"Latreille remained detained at the prison of the Grand Séminaire. In the same chamber which he occupied there was at the time an old sick bishop, whose wounds a surgeon came each morning to dress. One day as the surgeon was dressing the bishop's wounds, an insect came out of a crack in the boards. Latreille seized it immediately, examined it, stuck it on a cork with a pin, and seemed enchanted at what he had found.
"Is it a rare insect, then?" said the surgeon.
"Yes," replied the ecclesiastic.
"In that case you should give it to me."
"Why?"
"Because I have a friend who has a fine collection of insects, who would be pleased with it."
"Very well, take him this insect; tell him how you came by it, and beg him to tell me its name."
The surgeon went quickly to his friend's house. This friend was Bory de Saint Vincent, a naturalist who became celebrated afterwards, but who was very young at that time. He already occupied himself much with the natural sciences, and in particular with the classing of insects. The surgeon delivered to him the one found by the priest, but in spite of all his researches, he was unable to class it.