COLEOPTERA. 21 



COLEOPTERA. 



Beetles. — Scarabjeians. Ground-Beetles. Tree-Beetles. Cockchaf- 

 ers or May-Beetles. Flower-Beetles. Stag-Beetles. — Buprestians, 

 or Saw-horned Borers. — Spring-Beetles. — Timber-Beetles. — Wee- 

 vils. — Cylindrical Bark-Beetles. — Capricorn-Beetles, or Long-horn- 

 ed Borers. — Leaf-Beetles. Criocerians. Leaf-mining Beetles. Tor- 

 toise-Beetles. Chrysomelians. — Cantharides. 



The wings of beetles are covered and concealed by a pair of 

 horny cases or shells, meeting in a straight line on the top of the 

 back, and usually having a little triangular or semicircular piece, 

 called the scutel, wedged between their bases. Hence the order 

 to which these insects belong is called Coleoptera, a word sig- 

 nifying wings in a sheath. Beetles* are biting-insects, and are pro- 

 vided with two pairs of jaws moving sidewise. Their young are 

 grubs, and undergo a complete transformation in coming to maturity. 



At the head of this order Linnaeus placed a group of insects, 

 to which he gave the name of Scarab.eus. It includes the 

 largest and most robust animals of the beetle kind, many of them 

 remarkable for the singularity of their shape, and the formidable 

 horn-like prominences with which they are furnished, — together 

 with others, which, though they do not present the same impos- 

 ing appearance, require to be noticed, on account of the injury 

 sustained by vegetation from their attacks. An immense num- 

 ber of Scarabseians (ScarabjEid^e), as they may be called, 

 are now known, differing greatly from each other, not only in 

 structure, but in their habits in the larva and adult states. They 

 are all easily distinguished by their short movable horns or an- 

 tennae, ending with a knob, composed of three or more leaf-like 

 pieces, which open like the petals of a flower-bud. Another 

 feature that they possess in common, is the projecting ridge 

 (Clypeus) of the forehead, which extends more or less over the 

 face, like the visor or brim of a cap, and beneath the sides of this 

 visor the antennae are implanted. The peculiar form of the fore- 

 head in these insects seems to have given rise to the term beetle- 



* Beetle, in old English, bed, bijtl, or bitel, means a biter, or insect that bites. 



