580 



The Natural IIistory 



beetles furnish us with many species of large size, and of the 

 most brilliant metallic lustre, among which the Tmesisternus 

 mirabilis, a longicorn beetle of a golden green color ; the ex- 

 cessively brilliant rose-chafers, Lomaptera wallacei and Ana- 

 camptorhina fulgida; one of the handsomest of the Bupres- 

 tida3, Calodema wallacei ; and several fine blue weevils of the 

 genus Eupholus, are perhaps the most conspicuous. Almost 

 all the other orders furnish us with large or extraordinary 

 forms. The curious horned flies have already been mention- 

 ed; and among the Orthoptera the great shielded grasshop- 



THE GKEAT-SHIELDED GEASSHOPPEE. 



pers are the most remarkable. The species here figured (Me- 

 galodon ensifer) has the thorax covered by a large triangular 

 horny shield, two and a half inches long, with serrated edges, 

 a somewhat wavy, hollow surface, and a faint median line, so 

 as very closely to resemble a leaf. The glossy wing-coverts 

 (when fully expanded, more than nine inches across) are of a 

 fine green color and so beautifully veined as to imitate closely 

 some of the large shining tropical leaves. The body is short, 

 and terminated in the female by a long curved sword-like ovi- 

 positor (not seen in the cut), and the legs are all long and 

 strongly-spined. These insects are sluggish in their motions, 



