166 SKIP-JACK BEETLES. 



blackish brown. When at rest, or walking, it is content with 

 the display of only two lights, emitted from a pair of lamps, 

 or yellow tubercles, placed on either side the chest ; but when, 

 with wings extended, it shoots across the dusky sky, another 

 luminary, also in the thorax, but seated further back, is ren- 

 dered visible. 



Though we have none of these fire-flies, as yet, in England, 

 we have certain insects of the same family, which in all, save 

 luminosity, greatly resemble them. These are the very com- 

 mon longish brown beetles, known familiarly as "spring and 

 click beetles," also, "skip-jacks" names expressive of their 

 power, when laid upon their backs, of springing or leaping 

 into the air, with a clicking sound. 



Our readers, as we hope, all know by this time, that every 

 beetle has been in its time a grub or larva. They have all 

 heard, too, most likely, of that farmer's terror, the destructive 

 wire-worm ; but to some, even amongst farmers, it may possi- 

 bly be a piece of information that this wire-worm is none 

 other than a beetle-grub, and the grub, moreover, of such a 

 beetle as the click, or skip-jack, an Elator* nearly resembling 

 the tropic fire-fly; the grub of the latter loving to feed on the 

 roots of sugar-canes (to which, says Humboldt, it is often very 

 injurious), in lieu of the roots of corn and other vegetables, 

 the favourite fare of his British relative. 



These foreign lights (though the last, at all events, are no 



* See Vignette. 



