COLEOPTEROUS INSECTS. 115 



creatures that has been sometimes noticed in the 

 higher animals, that the most blood-thirsty propen- 

 sities are often combined with elegance of form and 

 the highest beauty of colouring. They are adorned 

 with the most beautiful tints of green and blue, with 

 coppery or golden reflections, and the majority are 

 variegated with spots and streaks of yellow. Their 

 rapacity and agile movements have procured for 

 them the name of Tiger-beetles. They prey indis- 

 criminately on other insects, and few of the smaller 

 kinds are capable of eluding or resisting their attack. 

 The larvae are equally voracious with the perfect 

 insect, but their locomotive organs being too im- 

 perfect to enable them to attempt an open war, they 

 have recourse to stratagem. In that early condition 

 the body is long, white, and cylindrical, furnished 

 with six scaly feet of a brown colour, and having 

 two strong fleshy tubercles, like horns, rising from 

 the back. It is entirely of a soft consistence, except 

 the head, which is covered with a large rounded 

 plate, and armed with two large jaws. These grubs 

 dig cylindrical holes in the sandy soil where they 

 love to reside, and lie in ambush at the entrance, 

 the opening of which is completely closed by the 

 broad scaly head. As the excavation is nearly per- 

 pendicular at its mouth, the grub would have diffi- 

 culty in retaining its position, were it not for the 

 dorsal spines formerly mentioned, by which it sus- 

 pends itself to the side of its dwelling. "When lying 

 in wait in this position, the jaws are expanded, and 



