CHAPTER V 

 BEETLES, GRASSHOPPERS, ETC. 



IT is more than two thousand years since 

 Aristotle observed that beetles are not 

 mere creeping things, but are gifted with 

 powers of flight. He perceived that they had 

 wings under hard cases, and thence gave them 

 the name that the Order in which they are 

 placed now bears Coleoptera, or Sheath- 

 winged insects. 



There are three Orders of insects in which 

 the upper pair of wings serve as a cover to the 

 lower pair. Of these the Hemiptera, or Bugs, 

 may be at once set aside, in a comparison with 

 the beetles, because any possibility of con- 

 fusion is prevented by the substitution in their 

 case of a proboscis adapted to sucking their 

 food for jaws adapted to bite it. The Coleoptera 

 and Orthoptera are not so readily distinguished. 

 The most obvious points of distinction are to 



