More Beetles 



on her shoulders a pair of skimpy sheaths 

 which contain the organs of flight, incapable 

 of unfolding. By what curious evolutionary 

 whim is the pretty Locust with the azure legs 

 deprived of the wings and wing-cases of 

 which she carries the germs in two miserable 

 little bundles? She is promised the gift of 

 flight and does not receive it. For no ap- 

 preciable reason, the wheels of the animal 

 mechanism are arrested. 



Stranger still is the case of the Psyches, 

 whose females, unable to become the Moths 

 promised in their early stages, remain cater- 

 pillars, or rather change into wallets stuffed 

 with eggs. Wings with gorgeous scales, the 

 supreme prerogative of Moth and Butterfly, 

 are denied them. The males alone achieve 

 the promised shape; they turn into plumed 

 dandies, clad in black velvet, and are excel- 

 lent flyers. Why does one and that one 

 the more important of the sexes remain a 

 wretched little sausage, while the other is 

 made glorious by the metamorphosis? 



And now what are we to say of the next, 

 Necydalis major, a denizen of the poplar and 

 the willow in his larval state? He is a Lon- 

 gicorn, fairly imposing in size as compared 

 with Cerambyx cerdo, the little Capricorn of 

 264 



