ORDER I. COLEOPTERA. 81 



possessed by the aquatic Acilius sulcatus, but this is 

 effected by the mere strength of the insect's spring, and 

 there is no especial provision for it. 



The Wire-worm, or larva of the Skipjack, is a long, 

 thin, cylindrical, hard, and eyeless grub, which causes 

 great devastation amongst potatoes and roots of various 

 kinds. The larves of some species live under the bark 

 of trees, and in rotten wood. These insects belong to 

 the Subdivision Macrosterni (Mtuc/>oc, large ; 'S.rtpvov, 

 breast), which also contains some pretty black and red 

 species. 



The second Subdivision Aprosterni (a, without, irpo, 

 pro, in front of; Srlpvov, breast), consists of soft-bodied 

 beetles with serrate horns. Of these the reddish -yellow 

 " Soldiers," and the red-legged black-elytroned " Sailors" 

 (PI. III. fig. 1), are, perhaps, the best known, being 

 abundant and conspicuous everywhere. In these insects 

 the head is not concealed within the thorax, the legs 

 and antenna? are longer than in the Skipjacks, and the 

 last joint but one of the tarsus is divided into two lobes. 

 They are nearly as actively predaceous as the pentamerous 

 beetles of the first Subsection, but the maxilla has only 

 one palpus. 



Not altogether unlike the dark Telephorus is the 

 male of the Glowworm (PL II. fig. 5), a soft-bodied, dusky 

 insect, without however the red legs of the Telephorus, 

 with shorter antennee, with a head even more concealed 

 than that of the Skipjack beneath the thorax, and possess- 

 ing the remarkable property of emitting light. The light 

 emitted by the male Glowworm is considerably less than 

 that of the female ; but, though this is sometimes disputed, 

 the male certainly does emit light. The writer was once 

 reading by lamplight in a farmhouse in the New Forest 



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