THE BEETLE. 151 



of all its impediments, and becomes a winged in- 

 sect, completely formed. Yet still the animal is 

 far from attaining its natural strength, health, and 

 appetite. It undergoes a kind of infant imbecility ; 

 and, unlike most other insects, that the instant 

 they become flies are arrived at their state of full 

 perfection, the May-bug continues feeble and 

 sickly. Its colour is much brighter than in the 

 perfect animal ; all its parts are soft, and its vora- 

 cious nature seems for a while to have entirely for- 

 saken it. As the animal is very often found in 

 this state, it is supposed, by those unacquainted 

 with its real history, that the old ones, of the 

 former season, have buried themselves for the 

 winter, in order to revisit the sun the ensuing 

 summer. But the fact is, the old one never sur- 

 vives the season, but dies, like all the other wing- 

 ed tribe of insects, from the severity of cold in 

 winter. 



About the latter end of May, these insects, 

 after having lived for four years under ground, 

 burst from the earth, when the first mild evening 

 invites them abroad. They are at that time seen 

 rising from their long imprisonment, from living 

 only upon roots, and imbibing only the moisture 

 of the earth, to visit the mildness of the summer 

 air, to choose the sweetest vegetables for their 

 banquet, and to drink the dew of the evening. 

 Wherever an attentive observer then walks abroad, 

 he will see them bursting up before him in his 

 pathway, like ghosts on a theatre. He will see 

 every part of the earth, that had its surface beaten 

 into hardness, perforated by their egression. When 



