INSECTS: WINGS AND THEIR APPENDAGES 93 



powder of rich colors red, brown, orange and yellow, 

 foiled by dull lead-gray in places. 



If you touch one of these nimble leapers, though ever 

 so lightly, you will see the result on your finger-ends for 

 they will be found covered with a thin stratum of the finest 

 dust, which displays the colored metallic reflection seen on 

 the insect. By touching one with a plate of glass, instead 

 of your finger, you will get the same dust to adhere to 

 this transparent medium, by applying which to the micro- 

 scope you may at once discern the marvellous nature of 

 the raiment with which the little creature is bedecked. 



The dust is now seen to be composed of myriads of 



BRISTLE-TAIL. 



(Slightly enlarged.) 



thin scales, mostly regular and symmetrical in their forms, 

 though varying exceedingly among themselves in this re- 

 spect. Some are heart-shaped, some shovel-shaped, some 

 round, oval, elliptical, half round, half elliptical, long and 

 narrow, sometimes irregular and unequal, and of various 

 other indescribable outlines. Perhaps the most common 

 forms are ovate, heart-shaped, and that of the pan of 

 a fire-shovel. Each thin scale has a minute foot-stalk, 

 which is not connected with it at either extremity, but at 

 a point of one surface a little way from the smaller end, 

 whence it projects at an oblique angle; so that when the 

 stalk was inserted in its proper cell in the skin of the in- 



