138 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



[July 



which branch off the centipedes, tlien follows a station at which one 

 may see the signboard — change here for spiders and scorpions; and 

 then, at length, we shall be on the line of rail leading for insects only. 

 Only ! Why, half the kinds of living things in the world are insects. 

 The little butterfly germ might yet take a wrong turn, or get into a 

 wrong carriage and come out a grasshopper, or a beetle, or a bug, or 

 a fly, or, almost safe at its journey's end, be after all a moth, and 

 perhaps have to fly by night instead of in the sunshine. No fear, 

 that wondrous virtue derived from its parents will preserve from all 

 wanderings. Let me change the word "from," I am thankful to 

 believe that I know whence it is originally from ; but it is through the 

 parents, and the parents, step by step, not one step missing or 

 swerving, nor any change the result of chance. 



Something like this is butterfly life before leaving the egg. Time 

 has permitted me to explain only three stages. The fertilised egg 

 which first appears as the cell with its jelly and spot, the blackberry 

 stage, and the indented hollow ball stage. I would remind you that 

 we could see something of a reason for the blackberry stage. 

 I explained it by the operation of the turquoise cutter whose work was 

 the result of the action of his mind. It was quite natural and 

 reasonable, we could see something of the why; similarly of the next 

 stage. And now, lastly, I would ask you to compare the dinted ball 

 without any traces of a head or a tail, or of eyes or legs, with the tiny 

 caterpillar as you first see it issue from the egg in your breeding cages, 

 perfectly adapted for its habits of life. What a procession of 

 transformations you must add to the first three, if you would reckon 

 up all the transformations accomplished in the butterfly's egg. 

 Nature sometimes makes the outside of the egg pretty, it is but the 

 casket, the higher beauty is within. 



THE SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF 

 THE BRITISH COLEOPTERA. 



BY JOHN W. ELLIS, M.B. (VIc), F.E.S. 

 (Continued from page 115). 



Structure. —By far the most interesting of the secondary sexual 

 characters of the Coleoptera are the modifications which some of their 

 organs and parts, — notably the mandibles, antennae, legs, and the 

 segments of the abdomen, — undergo, and a consideration of these 

 characters will occupy a large share of attention in the present paper. 

 First in anatomical oxd^x come?,',— The Head with its appendages- eyes 



