CLASS INSECTS. 



439 



ig;, 463. Larva of the 

 May-bug, or Cockchafer. 



gether wanting, and then the insect cannot fly ; this is the 

 case with the charancon (the weevil) which destroys our 

 granaries, and is remarkable for its head, prolonged into the 

 form of a beak. 



The coleoptera undergo complete 

 metamorphoses. The larva resembles 

 a worm with a horny head, whilst the 

 rest of the body is almost always soft 

 (Fig. 463); its mouth is formed in 

 the same way as that of the perfect 

 insect ; the three rings which follow 

 the head have each of them almost 

 always a pair of limbs, generally very 

 short ; finally, there exists in a great 

 number of these animals a pair of 



false limbs attached to the last segment of the abdomen. The 

 nymph is inactive, and takes no nourishment; it is covered 

 with a membranous skin, applied exactly over the subjacent 

 parts, and permits their being seen. 



Most of these insects are remarkable for the hardness of 

 their integuments and the brilliancy of their colours. Some 

 are carnivorous, the gilded carabus (beetle) or gardener 

 (Fig. 9), so common in the sandy walks, for example; others, 

 as the may-bug, live on vegetables. 

 Their number is immense, and already 

 thirty thousand species are known; 

 but we shall limit ourselves here to 

 mentioning only the scarabsei, of which 

 one species (Fig. 461) is celebrated, 

 by reason of the respect with which it 

 was viewed by the ancient Egyptians ; 

 the cantharides, or Spanish flies (Fig. 

 464), which, in the south of France 

 and of Spain, live on the ash-tree and 

 the lilac, and furnish to medicine a 

 very energetic blistering substance ; 

 the weevils, which live on grain ; the 

 wimble (Fig. 460) (Ptinus), and the 

 wood piercers, which in the state of 

 larva perforate the wood of old fur- 

 niture and timber- work ; the dermestes (Fig. 462), whose 

 larvae live on the cast-off skins of other animals ; and 

 often in this way destroy furriery and zoological collections ; 



Fig. 464. Cantharis, 

 or Spanish Fly. 



