INSECTS. 



179 



Omnipotent Creator. The word is used by naturalists in a 

 technical sense, to express the degree in which we find those 

 peculiarities developed that constitute any particular group. 

 Those peculiarities of structure, for example, that make an 

 Insect what it is, and not a Worm or a Crustacean, are 

 found to be present in the greatest intensity, and in the 

 fullest combination, in the group of Beetles, and hence we 

 say that these are the most perfect of their class. A Beetle 

 is not more perfect as an animal than any other, but it is 

 a more perfect insect, or rather, more perfectly an insect. 



may very readily identify a Beetle by its mouth 

 being armed by two pairs of forceps-like jaws, and by its 

 fore- wings being hardened into leathery sheaths for the 

 hinder wings, and meeting in a straight line down the 

 centre. The technical name Coleopteba, or Sheath-ivings, 

 expresses the latter character in Greek. 



Many species of this group are pre-eminent for beauty 

 of colour, especially the many-coloured refulgence of bur- 

 nished metal, as in the Buprestidce, and the Cetoniadice, and 

 the Eumolpidce, and others ; and the lustre of the richest 

 precious stones, as in many of the Diamond-beetles and 

 others of the Curculionida?, whose wing-sheaths under a 

 lens look as if they were dusted with pounded gems. 



The Glow-worm, that lights our hedge-banks with its 

 feeble spark- in the soft summer nights of July, is a Beetle, 

 and so is the Firefly of the West Indies, that carries a 

 pair of flaming lamps upon his back. The pretty scarlet 

 Lady-bird, that appears to have had a " favourable erup- 

 tion " of black buttons, is a little Beetle that every child 

 knows and loves ; and the dreadful Death-watch, that 

 scratched the doom of our great-grandmothers on their 



