20 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



COLEOPTERA. 



Beetles. — Scarab.t:iaxs. Ground-Beetles. Tree-Beetles. Cockchafers 

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

 Saw-horned Borers. — Spring-Beetles. — Timber-Beetles. — Weevils. — 

 Cylindrical Bark-Beetles. — Capricorn-Beetles, or Long-horned Bor- 

 ers. — Leaf-Beetles. Criocerians. Leaf-mining Beetles. — Tortoise- 

 Beetles. Chrysomelians. — Cantharides. 



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

 horny cases or shells, meeting in a sti-aight 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 signifying wings in a sheath. Beetles* are biting-insects, 

 and are provided 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 gi'oup 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 fur- 

 nished, — together with others, which, though they do not 

 present the same imposing appearance, require to be noticed, 

 on account of the injury sustained by vegetation from their 

 attacks. An immense number of Scarabseians (Sc arable id^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 antennae, 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 {chjpeus) of the forehead, which extends 



* Beetle, in old English, betl, hytl, or litel, means a biter, or insect that bites. 



