COLEOPTERA. 



This is the order of the beetles. It is made up of 

 the insects often called bugs, but which are really not 

 bugs at all. The name, Coleoptera, is made from two 

 Greek words, koleos, sheath, and ptera, meaning wings; 

 hence the Coleoptera are the Sheath Wings among the 

 insects. The front wings are usually hard and homy, 

 often brilliantly colored and shiny. They are not useful 

 for flying, but are literally sheaths for the true wings, 

 which lie under these sheath wings. The true wings are 

 thin and gauzy, are considerably longer than the sheath 

 wings, or elytra; and when not in use are folded once 

 lengthwise, plaited like a fan, and then are tucked away 

 under the eljrtra. If one watches a beetle just settling 

 from flight, one may see these gauzy flight wings and just 

 how they are disposed when the beetle alights. 



Some of the characteristic beetle haunts may already 

 be known to the student of .insects. Some beetles must be 

 looked for in the pond or the river ; but most of them are 

 terrestrial in habit. In the back yard, under stones, 

 boards, and leaf piles; under the woodpile; in the neighbor- 

 hood of some decaying carcass; under the bark of some 

 old stump; under the umbrella-like top of some toad 

 stool; in the hot, dusty road; or scuttling across your 

 path into the friendly shelter of the weeds and the grasses; 

 in the golden-rod and the blazing star clusters; on your 

 melon vines or in your cabbage patch; around the edges 

 of your carpets; in the flour bins or among the stored 

 grains — ^in any of these places and many more you may 



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