180 HALF-HOURS IN THE GREEN LANES. 



beautiful shiny green, glossed with gold, and the 

 wing-cases, or elytra, being further adorned with a 

 number of various dottings and markings scattered 

 over them. The belly is a bright copper colour. 

 If you examine the full-blown roses of some neigh- 

 bouring garden, you will be almost certain to come 

 Fig 128 across some of these pretty 



little beetles, for it is from 

 their habit of affecting those 

 flowers that they take their 

 popular name. Privet-blos- 

 soms are another favourite 

 haunt of theirs, in some parts 

 of the country. The larva of 

 the rose beetle are fond of old 

 rotten wood, decaying trees, 

 &c. The Tortoise beetle 

 (Cassida viridis) is another 



Distribution of the Cerebro- f OUI C0mmon 8 P ecieS > its 



spinal System in a Beetle name being derived from its 



Carabus nemoralis. 11 an -\ -L vi 



rounded, flattened, bug-like 



shape. It is of a dullish green colour, and its thorax 

 is so large that the head is almost hidden a cir- 

 cumstance which considerably adds to its roundish 

 appearance. The larva of this species is a very 

 singular object, flat and covered with spines, and 

 having a peculiar forked apparatus proceeding from 

 the tail and passing over the back. On this fork, a 

 kind of umbrella is supported, formed of the remains 

 of the leaves on which the larva has been feeding. 



