OR, PLAIN TEACHING. 



333 



Less attractive in appearance 

 than butterflies, but equally in- 

 teresting in their habits, are 

 beetles, comprising the order 

 coleoptera, a word signifying 

 wings in a sheath. The insects 

 composing this order are almost 

 incredible in point of number, 

 no less than 80,000 species being 

 recognised and named. Beetles 

 are all produced from eggs ; they 

 then become grubs ; afterwards 

 they are changed into chrysalides ; 

 and lastly, they issue forth as 

 winged insects. Thus their 

 transformations are similar to 

 those which butterflies undergo ; 

 but many of the species are 

 aquatic, and pass their larva and 

 pupa states in water. 



The larvce are soft, flexible, 

 whitish worms, having the body 

 divided into rings, and furnished 

 with a scaly head, armed with 

 strong jaws. The period during 

 which they remain in the larva 

 state varies in different species, 

 those of some kinds becoming 

 perfect after a few months, and 

 others not until the lapse of 

 three or four years. The grubs 

 of those that are not aquatic 

 usually live in the earth, where 

 they feed upon the roots of vege- 

 tables, animal matter in a state 

 of decomposition, &c. When 

 about to undergo the change of 

 form, they make an egg-shaped 

 cocoon, from fragments of wood, 

 which they gnaw off with their 

 strong mandibles. 



The conversion of the first 

 pair of wings into elytra, or hard 

 wing-cases, and the complete 

 enclosure of the second pair 

 by them, when the insect is at 



rest, or engaged in burrowing or 

 boring, constitutes the distin- 

 guishing feature of the order. 

 And what a beautiful provision 

 are these wing-cases ! The true 

 wings are finer than the rarest 

 silk, and as beetles lodge in holes 

 in the earth or in trees, environed 

 by hard rough substances, and 

 have frequently to force their 

 way through narrow passages, 

 wings so tender, and in some 

 cases so large, could not have 

 escaped injury, without a firm 

 covering to defend them, and the 

 marvellous capacity of folding 

 themselves beneath the cases 

 appointed to shield them. 



The stag-beetle, 1130, is an 

 insect of large size, exhibiting 

 the chief characteristics of the 

 beetle tribes. 



These beetles live upon the 

 sap of trees, and their large 

 horns are probably for the pur- 

 pose of lacerating the bark, in 

 order that the sap may be the 

 more easily obtained. 



Moralising upon the beauty of insects, 

 Alphonse Karr says : — " I can easily understand 

 that an insect, which glitters in the sun with 

 the richest colours, should be proud of its dress ; 

 I could pardon the bird, which in the morning 

 shakes itself in the earliest ray of the dawn, 

 and, on finding itself richly clothed, should be 

 a little vain of its plumage, because the wings 

 of the butterfly and the feathers of the bird 

 belong to them, and are parts of them. But is 

 there anything that ought to render them more 

 humble than the toilette of a man or a woman ? 

 Is it not, in the first place, a melancholy 

 admission, that our body is a carcass which we 

 can only embellish by concealing it. art object 

 for which we employ means the most violent 

 and extraordinary ? That ring, now — that ring 

 of gold, set off by a large pearl, worth, perhaps, 

 a thousand crowns — has been dug from the 

 bowels of the earth, and raked from the abyss 

 of the sea! and its only object is to conceal 

 a very small part of the hand, which appears 

 to you less beautiful than a little metal and the 

 secretion of an oyster ; for women, who are 

 quite satisfied with their hands, never wear 

 I rings." 



