THE SHARDED BEETLE. 45' 



the wound has been inflicted. All the animals, the 

 birds, the fishes, which we are in the habit of meet- 

 ing, have a mouth composed of an upper and lower 

 jaw, and the motion appears to be vertical. The 

 mouth in insects is totally different : many have 

 two upper jaws and two under jaws, and in these 

 the motion is horizontal. 



In the first order of insects fColeopteraJ , to which 

 the " sharded beetle " belongs, the several parts of 

 the mouth are more distinct than in many of the 

 other divisions. Beetles, therefore, of which this 

 order is composed, are said to have more perfect 

 mouths than gnats, moths, or butterflies. It is not 

 meant that any real imperfection attaches to the 

 mouth of a gnat, or of a butterfly ; on the contrary, 

 we know that each "is perfect after its kind;" but 

 by using the word perfect, I merely mean to say 

 that each of the several parts of the mouth in the 

 beetle tribes is more fully developed than in some of 

 the other orders, where some parts are considerably 

 enlarged, and others exist only as rudiments, or else 

 are altogether wanting. 



A perfect mouth consists of seven parts : and will 

 perhaps be better understood by a reference to the 

 accompanying figure. The mouth consists, as in 

 all masticating insects, of an upper lip, labrinn (a) ; 

 a pair of horny jaws, moving horizontally, called 



