THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER 
No. 96.] 
BEETLES. 
“ The beetle that we tread upon.” 
Mf.asuke for Measure. 
“ But,’’ say the Lepidopterists, “ we don’t 
tread upon beetles.’’ Possibly not, but 
you do worse, as far as you are con- 
cerned, you step over them and neglect 
them, or if you pick them up you throw 
them away. Perhaps it is in vain to ask 
you to do otherwise, and if you are 
diligent you have generally enough to 
do with your favourites, yet we cannot 
but wish that our favourites had some 
more admirers, and we desire to draw 
the attention of our readers to some of 
the advantages that the study of the 
Coleoptera, just at this season, pos- 
sesses. 
At the same time we do not wish 
to detract from the charms of the 
Lepidoptera, nor to induce any one to 
neglect the scale-wings. They are old 
loves of ours, and many an hour have 
we pondered over their beauties and 
wonderful economy. But they are de- 
licate and fragile creatures, requiring 
to be set out directly they are dead; 
and, now that everybody is going out 
for an excursion, we would fain desire 
that the opportunities which will present 
[Price Id. 
themselves of getting some of our rarer 
beetles should not be neglected. The 
hardness of the bodies of the Coleoptera, 
and the ease with which most of them 
can be preserved until the collector 
returns from his journey, make them 
pre-eminently the tourists’ insects; aud 
when we consider that the out-of-the- 
way places pedestrians visit are likely 
to afford new or rare species, it is surely 
not necessary to say more to put at 
least some of our readers on the alert. 
It is true the best of the season is over, 
but we are not writing of what might 
have been done if collectors had been 
out two or three months ago, but of 
wbat remains to be done by those who 
could not then, but can now, go where 
their pleasure calls them ; and the 
gleaning is in many parts almost as 
good as the harvest. Our hints may 
be of advantage to more than the 
Lepidopterists, who find no game of 
their own specialite to take. 
Botanists have many chances of 
finding good stray beetles ; and those 
who are neither Entomologists nor Bota- 
nists, but who have left home to wile 
away a week or two, might often, when 
sitting on the turf or lounging idly 
about, if they only knew their advan- 
SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1858. 
T 
