62 



Marvels of Insect Life. 



Photo by] 



Fiddler Beetle." 



[H. Bastin. 



So called on account of its fiddle shape. Its form among bectUs 

 is uniqiie, and regarded as most remarkable. Found on the 

 under side of fallen trees in Java. 



Photo by] 



A Timber Beetle. 



[E. Step, l-.L.S. 



llic wood-boring beetles have usually a slender, straight-sided 

 body, and long, many-jointed antennie. This example is a 

 native of Britain, and affects willow and ash trees. Enlarged four 

 times. 



certain of their early stages, and this is 

 mainly due to their concealed modes of 

 life making it difficult — in some cases 

 impossible — to study these stages. The 

 chrysalis, as a rule, is soft, the limbs being 

 free from the body. This stage usually 

 lasts but a few weeks, but the perfect 

 Insect after emergence from it mostly 

 remains secluded for a time until its outer 

 integuments have hardened and developed 

 their proper coloration. 



Beetles are to be found everywhere, 

 and their adaptation to every kind of 

 environment has produced an enormous 

 number of forms, something like 150,000 

 species being already known, named, and 

 classified. So little, however, do their 

 habits bring them into prominence that it 

 is usually with surprise that the average 

 person learns that the beetles of the 

 British Islands number more than three 

 thousand distinct species ; and it would 

 perhaps be a greater surprise if they could 

 learn how many of these are inhabitants 

 of their own garden — and house ! Yet a 

 little observation will reveal them swarm- 

 ing about flowers, running on and in the 

 earth, resting under loose bark, under 

 dead leaves and fallen branches, in 

 decayed stumps, in fungi, in ponds and 

 streams, even under submerged stones on 

 the seashore. 



Whilst a few beetles — such as the 

 potato-beetle, the asparagus-beetle, the 

 pea -weevil, the turnip-flea, and the 

 cockchafe r — are noxious Insects 

 from the human vie w-p o i n t , the 

 great majority are harmless or positively 

 beneficent, either as scavengers, re- 

 ducers of effete matter, tillers of the boil, 

 or as direct opponents of Insects that 

 are harmful to cultivation. Most of the 

 ground-beetles, for example, are carni- 

 vorous both as grubs and beetles, and are 

 for ever hunting below ground for the 



