discharge of a musket in miniature; during which a blue smoke may be seen to procced from its anus. This insect may be made at any time to play off its little artillery by scratching its back with a needle. If we may believe Bolander, who first made these observations, it can give twenty discharges successively. A bladder placed near the anus, is the arsenal from whence it derives its store, and this is its chief defence against an enemy, although the smoke emitted seems to be altogether inoffensive, except it be by causing a fright, or concealing its Its chief enemy is a great carabus (another species of the buprostis): when pursued, and fatigued, it has recourse to this stratagem, by laying in the path of the carabus, which advances with open mouth and claws to receive it; but on the discharge of this artillery, suddenly draws back, and remains awhile confused; during which the bombardier conceals himself in some neighbouring crevice, and if not happy enough to find one, the carabus returns to the attack, takes the insect by the head, and tears it off -ANNUAL REGISTER, Vol. xv. 1772.

course.

Lucarus (ruby

THE FLYING HART, a BEETLE so called.

IN Virginia and New England, there is a large flying beetle of a dark shining brown colour, with a huge pair of horns, in proportion to the body, shaped and branched exactly like a stag or hart's horn, from which last it hath its derivation, and is called the Flying Hart. It flies high and swift, and rests commonly upon branches or trunks of standing trees, where, as soon as it has taken up its station, it begins with a shrill chirping voice, which it raises by little and little till it makes the whole woods ring again, and then lessens gradually till it ceases with a kind of silent murmur, as if the little creature had sung itself asleep; then it flies to some other place, and begins the same tune again.

The horns are of a shining hard substance, and the tips of them touch the same plane with the belly.-PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS:

THE BLACKSMITH FLY.

THE Blacksmith Fly, is so called from its making a noise, resembling, in sound, the striking on iron. In the centre of its back is a projecting horny point, and a crevice of the same nature on the hind part of the head, near the shoulders, which being struck together, by a jerk of the head and body, make a tingling noise, that may be heard at a considerable distance; and so elastic is the membrane which joins the head and body together, that, if the insect is laid on its back, it will spring to a tolerable height upwards, and fall directly on its legs. It differs very little from the beetle in shape or size, excepting in its elastic powers, and making so singular a noise.ATWOOD'S HISTORY OF DOMINICA,

DR. SPARMAN relates, that when at the Cape, he observed this insect at noon-tide as he sought for shelter among the branches of a shrub from the intolerable heat of the sun. -Though the air (says he) was extremely still and calm, so as hardly to have shaken an aspen leaf, yet I thought I saw a little withered, pale, crumpled leaf, eaten as it were by caterpillars, flittering from the tree.

This appeared to me so very extraordinary, that I thought it worth my while suddenly to quit my verdant bower, in order to contemplate it; and I could scarcely believe my eyes, when I saw a live insect, in shape and colour resembling the fragment of a withered leaf, with the edges turned up, and eaten away as it were by caterpillars, and at the same time all over beset with prickles. Nature, by this peculiar form, has certainly extremely well defended and concealed, as in a mask, this insect from birds and its other diminutive foes; in all probability with a view to preserve it, and employ it for some important office in the system of her economy,

-a system with which we are too little acquainted, in general too little investigated; and which, in every part of it, we can never sufficiently admire with that respect and veneration which we owe to the great Author

of Nature and ruler of the Universe.