63 



CHAPTEK V. 



ORDER I. COLEOPTERA. 



THAT great diversity of habit, food, and structure should 

 be found in the order Coleoptera, might be inferred from 

 the fact that the species of Beetles (of which it is com- 

 posed) greatly exceed in number those of any other order 

 of insects. In England alone there are about 8000 known, 

 and the number constantly increases. 



Amongst these then we find inhabitants of the land 

 and of the water, dwellers on the earth and under the 

 earth ; we find scavengers and sextons, fierce hunters 

 and sluggish vegetarians, and, strangest of all, we find a 

 servile race content to live in captivity and minister to 

 the needs or luxury of another tribe of animals. 



Between the larval and the perfect state of the same 

 species, diversity is also to be found. Thus some, fiercely 

 predaceous in the imperfect, become vegetarian in the 

 perfect state ; and the aquatic larva produces a beetle 

 which, though furnished with swimming organs, and 

 certainly most at home in its native element, is yet both 

 able and willing to use the powerful wings with which 

 also it is provided. Even upon land the water-beetles 

 are by no means destitute of the means of progression, 



