ENAMEL OF BEETLES. 267 



(which are the nearest allies to the Curculio in form and in 

 habits) peopling abundantly our wayside plants and our 

 shrubs ; and there is one among them, in particular, of bluish 

 green, with gold reflexes,* which wants nothing but size to en- 

 able it to rival the most richly-bedizened of its foreign relatives. 

 Red, black, purple, and variegated browns, are colours also 

 distributed amongst this beetle -family, of which all the mem- 

 bers are feeders on vegetable diet living plants or decayed 

 woods or seeds ; those which frequent the former being usually 

 arrayed more gaily than such as subsist upon the latter. 

 Curculionidce, or Weevils, are of easy recognition by one 

 strongly-marked family feature a proboscis, snout, or rostrum 

 of exceeding length, enlarged usually at the tip. The shape of 

 their bodies is an oblong square. 



There is a brilliant beetle of quite another form and family, 

 the Buprestis vittata (Bande doree], with whose gold-striped 

 wing-cases the natives of India are said to decorate their 

 dresses and embroider their slippers. Buprestides we have, 

 though none so splendid ; but we are not without our C/iry- 

 somelidtf,^ or ( Golden Apples ' (the name describes their 

 hemispheric contour) which adorn in their natural places the 

 plants and flowers they frequent, and no less, in artificial posi- 

 tions, the cabinet of the collector. 



We can exhibit also our gold green chafer (Cetonia aurata), 

 our " Love among the Roses," and, of colour no less brilliant, 



* Rhynchites Populi. t Also Melyrida. 



VOL. III. R 



