ENAMEL OF BEETLES. 



267 



(which, are the nearest allies to the Curcutio in form and in 

 habits) peopling abundantly our wayside plants and our 

 shrubs ; and there is one among them, in particular, of bluish 

 green, with gold reflexes,* which wants nothing but size to 

 enable it to rival the most richly -bedizened of its foreign rela- 

 tives. Red, black, purple, and variegated browns, are colours 

 also distributed amongst this beetle-family, of which all the 

 members are feeders on vegetable diet living plants or 

 decayed woods or seeds; those which frequent the former 

 being usually arrayed more gaily than such as subsist upon 

 the latter. Curculionidce, or Weevils, are of easy recognition 

 by one strongly-marked family feature a proboscis, snout, or 

 rostrum of exceeding length, enlarged usually at the tip. 

 The shape of their bodies is an oblong square. 



There is a brilliant beetle of quite another form and family, 

 the Buprestis vittata (Bande dorfe), with whose gold-striped 

 wing-cases the natives of India are said to decorate their 

 dresses and embroider their slippers. Buprestides we have, 

 though none so splendid ; but we are not without our Ghry- 

 somelidce^ or 'Golden Apples' (the name describes their 

 hemispheric contour) which adorn in their natural places the 

 plants and flowers they frequent, and no less, in artificial 

 positions, the cabinet of the collector. 



We can exhibit also our gold green chafer (Cetonia aurata), 

 our " Love among the Eoses," and, of colour no less brilliant, 



* Ekynchites Populi. t Also Melyridce. 



