COLEOPTERA. 125 



The Large Water Beetles (HydropJiilus)* belong to 

 this group. They swini and fly equally well, but walk upon 

 the ground with difficulty ; their breast is armed with a 

 sharp spine, a weapon that occasionally lacerates the hand 

 of those that handle them incautiously. The females are 

 provided with two spinnarets with which they form an oval 

 cocoon, wherein their eggs are arranged with much regu- 

 larity, packed up in a kind of white down. These 

 cocoons may sometimes be observed floating upon ponds. 

 Their larva differs widely in its structure from that of 

 the Dyticus, with which these insects were long con- 

 founded : it is provided with a horny head, which it is 

 able to turn back over its body, a faculty that permits it 

 to use its back as a kind of table upon which it cracks 

 the shells of little water-snails that constitute its usual 

 food. In some species the females carry their eggs in a 

 silken bag attached to their abdomen. 



The sixth and last section of the Coleopterous Pen- 

 tamerans is that of the LameUicornes,t distinguished 

 by having their antennas terminated by a packet 

 of narrow flat plates or lamellae, arranged like the 

 rays of a fan or the leaves of a" book. They all live 

 upon vegetable substances, and some are of large 

 size their bodies are massive, their flight slow, and 

 their gait heavy and tortoise-like. 



Their larvae are so fat and clumsy that they are 



FlG. 82. COCKCHAFER AXD LARVA. 



unable to walk, or do so with difficulty. They lie 

 upon their sides and devour the vegetation that im- 

 mediately surrounds them, and some of them live in 

 this condition for three or four years. They pass 

 their nymph condition buried in the earth, from 

 which they slowly crawl when their metamorphosis 



* v8p, udor, wafer ; /Aos, philos, loving. 



t Lamella, o leaf; cornu, a horn ; or antenna. 



