268 TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 



are invariably made up of six pieces ; the body is always more 

 or less heavy, thick, and stout, and in many of the members of 

 the family the structures of the mouth, and even the mandibles, 

 either remain partly or entirely membranous. This feeble condition 

 of the mouthpieces is generally accounted for by the nature of the 

 diet of the insect. 



The Scarabmd<2 are usually large, and some of them attain the 

 greatest size amongst insects. The principal forms of the family 

 are more or less known to everybody, and they are the Scarabcsidcs 

 proper, the Dung Beetles, the Cockchafers, the Rose Beetles, &c. 

 During the adult stage, the Scarabceidcs present very notable dif- 

 ferences in their external shapes and in their habits, but they re- 

 semble each other in a most wonderful manner when they are larvae. 

 These are the great "white worms," as they are usually called, 

 and they may be the larvae of any of the family, although they are 

 almost always attributed to the cockchafer. Every one has seen 

 these white fat things, whose bodies are thick and cylindrical, and 

 usually curled up, and whose skin is very thin and furnished here 

 and there with stiff hairs, which give the insect considerable 

 sensibility of touch and may assist in its movements. The larvae 

 have a rounded head, which is covered with a fawn-coloured or 

 brownish and very hard skin, and they have strong mandibles, 

 and antennae that have four or five joints. 



The larvae of the ScarabcBidcB were first carefully studied by a 

 Dutch naturalist, De Haan, in 1836, and since then other obser- 

 vations have been made upon them. The larvae are always hidden 

 up either in the ground, in the roots of plants, or in the middle of 

 vegetable or other rubbish. They never come to the light ; they 

 are colourless and rather soft, and as they always live in darkness 

 they have no eyes. They are always eating and consuming a 

 large quantity of nourishment, and therefore their digestive organs 

 are very voluminous. They walk with great difficulty, especially 

 as the curvature of their body necessitates their resting on one 

 of their sides. When first born they are rather active, but they 

 soon get lazy and dull, and spend the greater part of their lives 

 in destroying everything in their immediate neighbourhood, and 

 eating it. 



After a longer or shorter life, according to their peculiar habits, 



