268 
TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 
are invariably made up of six pieces ; the body is always more 
or less heavy, thick, and stout, and in many of the members of 
the family the structures of the mouth, and even the mandibles, 
either remain partly or entirely membranous. This feeble condition 
of the mouthpieces is generally accounted for by the nature of the 
diet of the insect. 
The Scarabceidce are usually large, and some of them attain the 
greatest size amongst insects. The principal forms of the family 
are more or less known to everybody, and they are the Scarcibceidce 
proper, the Dung Beetles, the Cockchafers, the Rose Beetles, &c. 
During the adult stage, the Scarabceidce present very notable dif- 
ferences in their external shapes and in their habits, but they re- 
semble each other in a most wonderful manner when they are larvae. 
These are the great “white worms,” as they are usually called, 
and they may be the larvae of any of the family, although they are 
almost always attributed to the cockchafer. Every one has seen 
these white fat things, whose bodies are thick and cylindrical, and 
usually curled up, and whose skin is very thin and furnished here 
and there with stiff hairs, which give the insect considerable 
sensibility of touch and may assist in its movements. The larvae 
have a rounded head, which is covered with a fawn-coloured or 
brownish and very hard skin, and they have strong mandibles, 
and antennae that have four or five joints. 
The larvae of the ScarabceidcE were first carefully studied by a 
Dutch naturalist, De Haan, in 1836, and since then other obser- 
vations have been made upon them. The larvae are always hidden 
up either in the ground, in the roots of plants, or in the middle of 
vegetable or other rubbish. They never come to the light ; they 
are colourless and rather soft, and as they always live in darkness 
they have no eyes. They are always eating and consuming a 
large quantity of nourishment, and therefore their digestive organs 
are very voluminous. They walk with great difficulty, especially 
as the curvature of their body necessitates their resting on one 
of their sides. When first born they are rather active, but they 
soon get lazy and dull, and spend the greater part of their lives 
in destroying everything in their immediate neighbourhood, and 
eating it. 
After a longer or shorter life, according to their peculiar habits, 
