20 INSECTS ABROAD. 



cabinet, and disfigured by the graceless and lifeless attitudes in 

 which entomologists will persist in setting all insects, without 

 the least reference to their habits when living, they never fail 

 to command attention even from those who know nothing 

 of insects. 



Excepting the dull-colonred Pha^oxanthas, which have already 

 been mentioned, the Tiger Beetles seem to concentrate in them- 

 selves every beauty of the insect race. Their colours are so 

 brilliant as almost to pain the human eye. Flashes of the most 

 resplendent azure, crimson, gold, emerald, purple, and every shade 

 of every colour, meet the eye as it glances over the insects, and 

 one which is not quite so dazzling as the others gives quite a 

 sense of repose. There is, for example, one species, a native of 

 Madagascar, which would when taken by itself command admi- 

 ration. Its name is Earymorplm cyanvpes, and its colour is to 

 the naked eye deep, dull green, except on the thorax, which is 

 covered with a quantity of long snowy white hair. It is 

 rather remarkable, on looking over the collection in the British 

 Museum, how the eye finds itself instinctively resting on this 

 insect, the cool green and white giving a feeling of repose to the 

 sense of sight, whicli becomes absolutely fatigued with the gor- 

 geous hues which meet it on every side. 



Should any of my readers be a classical scholar and not an 

 entomologist, he will probably be much surprised, and a little 

 scandalized, that the name of Cicindela is applied to these 

 Beetles. If we t'lrn to the old classic authors, we shall find 

 that the word Cicinrlela was originally used as the name of the 

 glow-worm, and was probably applied to any luminous insect. 

 Unfortunately, the earlier entomologists, when they first began 

 their formidable task of classifying the insect tribes, fell into 

 various errors regarding the relationships of the different 

 groups. 



One of these mistakes was made by Linnaeus, who considered 

 the glow-worm to be related to the Blister Beetle, and so gave 

 it the name of Cantharis, while to the Tiger Beetles he applied 

 the name of Cicindela, which by right belongs to the glow- 

 worm. Subsequently he corrected several such errors, but 

 persisted in retaining the name of Cicindela for the Tiger 

 lieetles, and the result has been that, entomologicallv, the name 



