hich I
am acquainted, but which is obviously indispensable for the due
performance of the useful functions they discharge.

[Footnote 1: _Ateuchus sacer; Copris sagax; C. capucinus_, &c. &c.]

[Illustration: LONGHORN BEETLE (BATEROCERA RUBUS).]

_The Coco-nut Beetle_.--In the luxuriant forests of Ceylon the extensive
family of _Longicorns_[1] and _Passalidae_ live in destructive abundance.
To the coco-nut planters the ravages committed by beetles are painfully
familiar.[2] The larva of one species of _Dynastida_, the _Oryctes
rhinoceros_, called by the Singhalese "_Gascooroominiya_," makes its way
into the younger trees, descending from the top, and after perforating
them in all directions, forms a cocoon of the gnawed wood and sawdust,
in which it reposes during its sleep as a pupa, till the arrival of the
period when it emerges as a perfect beetle. Notwithstanding the
repulsive aspect of the large pulpy larvae of these beetles, they are
esteemed a luxury by the Malabar coolies, who so far avail themselves of
the privilege accorded by the Levitical law, which permitted the Hebrews
to eat "the beetle after his kind."[3]

[Footnote 1: The engraving on the preceding page represents in its
various transformations one of the most familiar and graceful of the
longicorn beetles of Ceylon, the _Batocera rubus_.]

[Footnote 2: There is a paper in the _Journ. of the Asiat. Society of
Ceylon_, May, 1845, by Mr. CAPPER, on the ravages perpetrated by these
beetles. The writer had recently passed through several coco-nut
plantations, "varying in extent from 20 to 150 acres, and about two to
three years old: and in these he did not discover a single young tree
untouched by the cooroominiya."--P. 49.]

[Footnote 3: Leviticus, xi. 22.]

Amongst the superstitions of the Singhalese arising out of their belief
in demonology, one remarkable one is connected with the appearance of a
beetle when observed on the floor of a dwelling-house after nightfall.
The popular belief is that in obedience to a certain form of incantation
(called _cooroominiya-pilli_) a demon in the shape of a beetle is sent
to the house of some person or family whose destruction it is intended
to compass, and who presently falls sick and dies. The only means of
averting this catastrophe is, that some one, himself an adept in
necromancy, should perform a counter-charm, the effect of which is to
send back the disguised beetle to destroy his original employer; for in