COLEOPTERA. 501 
The females have no wings, while the males have them, and 
possess very well developed elytra. The females resemble the 
larvae much, only they have the head more conspicuous, and 
the thorax buckler-shaped, like the male. The larve feed on 
small molluses, hiding in the snails’ shells after having devoured 
the inhabitant. They also possess the phosphorescent property 
‘in a less degree than the adult females. The female pupa 
resembles the larva; the pupa of the male, on the contrary, has 
ithe wings folded back under a thin skin. The perfect insect 
| appears towards the autumn. 
| The Glow-worm (Lampyris noctiluca, Fig. 548) is of a brownish 
yellow. It 1s common in England. In a kindred species, the 

Fig. 548.—Lampyris noctiluca (male and female.) 
_ Luciola Ttalica, the two sexes are winged, of a tawny-brown, 
/and equally phosphorescent. They are met with in great 
| numbers in Italy, and the lawns are covered with them. Other 
insects of this family are without the faculty of emitting light; 
as for example, the genus Lycus, of brilliant colours, whieh are 
met with in Africa and India. One of the finest is the Lycus 
lutissimus. 
Drylus is another genus, comprising insects of very singular 
habits. The type is the Drylus flavescens. The male—a quarter 
of an inch long, black and hairy, with elytra of a testaceous 
yellow, and provided with antenne and long filaments—for a 
long time was alone known. The female—from ten to fifteen 
times as large, without wings and elytra, of a yellowish brown 
__was not discovered till much later, having apparently nothing 
+1 common with the male in shape or colour. The metamor- 
phoses of these curious insects are now perfectly understood. 
Mieczinsky, a Polish naturalist established at Geneva, found the 
Drylus in the larva state in the shell of the Helix nemoralis. 

