166 SKIP-JACK; BEETLES. 



blackish brown. When at rest, or walking, it is content 

 with the display of only two lights, emitted from a pair of 

 lamps, or yellow tubercles, placed on either side the chest; 

 but when, with wings extended, it shoots across the dusky 

 sky, another luminary, also in the thorax, but seated further 

 back, is rendered visible. 



Though we have none of these fire-flies, as yet, in England, 

 we have certain insects of the same family, which in all, save 

 luminosity, greatly resemble them. These are the very com- 

 mon longish brown beetles, known familiarly as " spring and 

 click beetles," also "skip-jacks" names expressive of their 

 power, when laid upon their backs, of springing or leaping 

 into the air, with a clicking sound. 



Our readers, as we hope, all know by this time, that every 

 beetle has been in its time a grub or larva. They have all 

 heard, too, most likely, of that farmer's terror, the destructive 

 wire-worm ; but to some, even amongst farmers, it may pos- 

 sibly be a piece of information that this wire-worm is none 

 other than a beetle grub, and the grub, moreover, of such a 

 beetle as the click, or skip-jack, an Elector,* nearly resembling 

 the tropic fire-fly ; the grub of the latter loving to feed on the 

 roots of sugar-canes (to which, says Humboldt, it is often 

 very injurious), in lieu of the roots of corn and other vege- 

 tables, the favourite fare of his British relative. 



These foreign lights (though the last, at all events, are no 



* See Vignette. 



