BEETLES. 163 



Insects, unlike the higher animals, have three stages 

 of existence the caterpillar stage, the pupa or chry- 

 salis stage, and the imago, or perfect insect. Through 

 these stages they all pass, whether beetles, bugs, 

 butterflies, moths, bees, flies, &c. From each of the 

 preliminary stages the entomologist can determine 

 the ultimate order to which the mature insect will 

 belong. The immense number of insects which spring 

 into existence during every month of the year where- 

 ever there is vegetation, would startle those who have 

 had no experience amongst them. " From such con- 

 siderations," writes Schrank, " are we not alarmed for 

 our forests, gardens, and groves ? Do not these in- 

 numerable millions of insects which incessantly labour 

 at their destruction confuse our understanding when 

 we begin to reckon them, and terrify our imagination 

 which magnifies them ? And can I be believed if I 

 assert that I discover beneficence in such unspeakable 

 destruction, beauty in these devastations, wisdom in 

 this disorder, and life in this manifold death ? Never- 

 theless it is so. Whatever many may say of nature 

 growing old, the naturalist finds her always young and 

 beautiful, always estimable, just as she came from the 

 hand of her Creator, and as she, indeed, every moment 

 issues afresh from the hand of the Almighty Being. 

 In His hand the youth of nature is continually re- 

 newed, and under His all-ruling providence all the 

 millions of apparently destructive beings only labour 

 in preserving her existence and embellishment." 



Insects are classed by those who study them in 

 several groups or orders, each of which has some 

 feature which is peculiar to all the genera and species 

 M 2 



