Longevity of the Beetle
Some facts recently stated to the British Association may, perhaps, shake faith in the “corporal sufferance” of the beetle, whose cause has been so eloquently pleaded by Shakspeare. Sir G. Richardson has exhibited a beetle found imbedded in some artificial concrete, where it must have been at least sixteen years; yet, when the animal was brought to him, it was alive, and lived for six weeks after—the ordinary duration of the life of this species of beetle being but two or three years. Mr. Darwin left one of the same kind of beetles in a covered vessel for a year, without its being killed; he also dropped upon one hydrocyanic acid, but it walked off, quite unaffected by the poison.