CHAPTER II. 
COLEOPTEUA. 
Beetles. — Scarar.eians. — Ground-Beetles. — Tree-Beetles. — Cock- 
chafers or May-Beetles. — Flower-Beetles. — Stag-Beetles. — Bu- 
prestians, or Saw-horned Borers. — Spring-Beetles. -Timber-Beetles. 
— Weevils. — Cylindrical Bark-Beetles. — Capricorn-Beetles, or 
Long-horned Borers. — Leaf-Beetles. — Crioceiiians. — Leaf-mining 
Beetles. — Tortoise-Beetles. — Chkysomelians. — Canthaeides. 
T HE wings of beetles are covered and concealed by a pair 
of horny cases or shells, meeting in a straight line on 
the top of the back, and usually having a little triangular or 
semicircular piece, called the scutel, wedged between their 
bases. Hence the order to which these insects belong is 
called Coleoptera, a word signifying wings in a sheath. 
Beetles* are biting-insects, and are provided with two pairs 
of jaws moving sidewise. Their young are grubs, and un- 
dergo a complete transformation in coming to maturity. 
At the head of this order Linnaeus placed a group of 
insects, to which he gave the name of Scara ileus. It 
includes the largest and most robust animals of the beetle 
kind, many of them remarkable for the singularity of their 
shape, and the formidable horn-like prominences with which 
they are furnished, — together with others, which, though 
they do not present the same imposing appearance, require 
to be noticed, on account of the injury sustained by vegeta- 
tion from their attacks. An immense number of Scarabte- 
ians (Scarad.'Eid.e), as they may be called, are now known, 
differing greatly from each other, not only in structure, but 
* Beetle, in old English, btU, bytl , or bitel, means a biter, or insect that bites. 
