I Word for the Beetle. By W. H. GROSER, F.G.S., B.Sc. "Where The beetle winds his small but sullen horn, ND the "pilgrim" loses his temper, calls the beetle ill "And well he may ugh! the nasty black ugly things!" Pardon our rudeness, dear reader, in flatly contradicting you; beetles, with a few,-very few exceptions, are neither nasty nor ugly; and while some are black (as kittens, puppies, and swans occasionally are), many are as gaily coloured as the ribbons in which our lasses adorn themselves. In these days of "technical," and "scientific," and "national " education, it is surely time we outgrew those old prejudices which led our forefathers to despise creatures which happened to be small in size, and not particularly beautiful at first sight. All God's works are wonderful, all excellent, and all well worthy of our study, so far as that study does not lead us to neglect more obvious and important duties. Those who pay attention to the structure and habits of insects,—and there are many young persons of both sexes who do so, will tell us that the beetle tribe, even in this country, comprises a vast assemblage of curious and interesting insects. Probably there are not less than 3,000 British species, different in size, colour, and habits, but all fearfully and wonderfully made, and all having their appointed places and duties. All are evidently formed upon the same type or pattern, but the different organs are modified and altered to suit the requirements and circumstances of each kind. Some fly in the air, others run, jump, or crawl from place to place; others burrow in the earth, and a considerable number inhabit streams, lakes, and ponds; but no beetle has ever been found in the sea. Their colours correspond to their dwelling-places and habits. Those which creep on the ground are usually sombre in colouring-devoid of those bright tints which would render them too sure a mark for hungry birds and small quadrupeds; but those kinds which find a home on trees, shrubs, and flowers, will furnish to any attentive observer, a rich variety of living objects, hardly inferior in grace and elegance to the gayest of our native moths or butterflies. And even those which, like the knightly prince of olden time, are cased in sable armour, not seldom emit from their polished coats of mail a varying play of colours which ought at least to be regarded as establishing some claim to beauty, even in a black beetle. Few possessors of a garden can have failed to notice with pleasure the burnished form of the common Rose-chafer, flitting with bee-like hum from flower to flower in the warm summer days, and now and then taking a brief but luxurious siesta in the corolla of the queenly rose, or the equally fair but less poetic bean! Yet this is but one of very many instances in which the despised beetle is found to be attired in armour more brilliant than the panoply of Hector or Achilles. The horny encasements of these insects often rival in brilliancy our most lustrous metals, or glow with the radiance of precious gems. There is a family prettily termed Chrysomelida, or golden apples, whose metallic brightness would have suffered nothing by comparison with those jealously-guarded "apples" which, as the ancient fable tells, hung in the garden of the Hesperides. The splendid diamond beetle of Brazil, so often impaled as a drawingroom ornament, is gazed upon with admiration by those who would scarcely believe that in the hedges of our colder clime lurk many members of the same extensive tribe, smaller in size, but scarcely inferior in beauty to that flying gem of the tropical zone. This disparity of size deprives many elegant little insects of the meed of praise which they would otherwise hardly fail to receive; but the microscope is at hand to remedy the disadvantage, and open out a field of inquiry both extensive and delightful. All our more attractive British beetles, however, are not pigmies. The Musk beetle, which is often more than an inch in length, is distinguished both by its rich green colour, and by the strong but agreeable odour which it exhales, and from which it has derived its popular name. The Cardinal (Pyrochroa rubens), a fine scarlet beetle, above half an inch long, is found in abundance on hedgerow flowers in the south of England. And the Calosoma, of which there are two British species, the smaller being three quarters of an inch in length, is so named from the beauty of its appearance. Yet While it must be conceded that the generality of beetles are somewhat inferior in outward attractions to the majority of moths and butterflies, the range of size is very considerable in both these orders. It is true that we have no native beetle which can pretend to rival the rare and celebrated Death's-head moth, a specimen of which if laid on this page with wings expanded, would leave little or none of the printed portion visible. a fully developed male Stag-beetle measures some two inches in length, with a corresponding bulk and an aspect truly formidable to those who see the insect for the first time. At the other end of the scale we have species as perfectly organized, whose dimensions have been aptly compared to those of a "full stop," such as the one which terminates the present sentence. The difference of length is much greater in proportion than that subsisting between the elephant and the shrew-mouse--the largest and smallest of known quadrupeds. But in the matter of strength the tribe of which we write holds no secondary rank. Beetles are the Samsons of the insect world. Their firm, compact, and well-protected bodies are furnished with numerous and powerful muscles, by the help of which they are able to offer a successful resistance to blows and pressure. and to perform feats of active effort which would render a higher animal, if similarly endowed, an object of universal wonder and perhaps alarm. Let any one take a cockchafer, and try to confine it in the closed hand; he will soon perceive with what force the little creature endeavours to effect its exit. Few persons are entirely unacquainted with the form of the common Dung-beetle. Upon one of these insects, weighing about 15 grains, a weight equal to nearly 4,800 grains was placed, when it immediately heaved up and cast off the mighty load. It subsequently sustained the same pressure on one of its legs, and disengaged the limb without any apparent difficulty. An ingenious entomologist harnessed a small kind of Ground-beetle by silk to a piece of paper, and found that the mimic steed was able to draw a load of 125 grains up a slightly inclined plane; "as if," says Mr. Gosse, "a man were to draw up a hill of similar inclination a waggon weighing two tons and a half, having first taken the wheels off." In another experiment, a Stag-beetle carried a piece of wood a foot and a half long and half an inch thick, and flew with it several yards! But the muscular power of the tribe is evidenced by other and more spontaneous performances than those undertaken for the benefit of inquiring minds. Unable to cleave the air with the arrowy speed of the dragon-fly—for earth is their special province; incapable in most instances of the rapidly changing movements of the Scale-wings; beetles are yet unsurpassed in swiftness of foot. The Tiger-beetles, for instance, are very race-horses in miniature ; the little Sun-beetles which dart across our path, their armour glittering in the sunbeams; the large predaceous Dytisci of our ponds; and those emblems of perpetual motion, the Whirligig beetles, which pirouette in groups from morning till night on the surface of still waters, are examples of activity which might easily be multiplied. The muscular power of beetles is employed for both offensive and defensive purposes. The predaceous kinds live by open violence, attacking their prey in open daylight, as do the Tiger-beetles; or prowling about under cover of the night, which is the practice of most other Groundbeetles. The smaller species have double duties to perform; on the one hand to protect themselves from the assaults of their bigger brethren; and on the other to fall upon and devour such insects as may be still smaller than themselves, or may lack the strength or spirit to offer successful resistance. The inoffensive members of the order whose tastes dispose them to a vegetarian diet, wisely exert their powers in keeping out of harm's way. A thoughtful observer of nature can hardly fail to admire the methods provided for the preservation and continuance of the weaker races of the animal world, so that even the most defenceless, while restrained within due bounds by the predaceous kinds to which they afford the means of subsistence, are not only guarded from extermination, but maintained in undiminished numbers. Such admiration will still find full scope, though the student may limit his inquiries to the insect race, or even to that particular order to which this paper is devoted. These apparently helpless creatures, too often thought worthy of no better fate than to be crushed by an angry or a heedless foot, are in some cases preserved from capture by the well-known expedient which renders the rifleman in his sober uniform of dull grey or green so difficult a mark to hit. Conformed naturally or by a wonderful instinct to the colour of the soil on which it moves, or resembling the green tint of the foliage which shelters it, the little creature escapes the notice of all but the keenest eye. One tiny beetle rolls itself in mud, another heaps sand upon its back, and another, frequenting chalk districts, is cautious to give to its black polished armour what looks like a coat of whitewash, thereby becoming as difficult to detect as an arctic fox in the region of perpetual snow. Others assume positions which cause them to resemble pebbles of various kinds, and similar inanimate objects, a practice said to be successfully imitated by Hindoo robbers. Others, again, feign death, and are contemptu. ously passed by, by animals which have a preference for living prey. Such is the hardihood of mimicry which some of these insects display, that they will submit to the roughest and even the most barbarous treatment (the experiment needs not to be repeated) without moving a muscle or giving the slightest evidence of vitality. Many small beetles which live on trees and shrubs have a trick which, though apparently attended with risk to limb, is often serviceable in preserving life. No sooner does danger in any shape draw nigh, than, packing themselves up with the utmost expedition, they drop to the ground as swiftly and smoothly as a dewdrop rolls off a leaf, and when fallen are almost as hard to recover. A species known to naturalists as Anthrenus musæorum, or the museum anthrenus, which audaciously frequents even the cabinets wherein scores of its brethren lie impaled, is furnished in the earlier stage of its history with tufts of hair, by means of which it literally slips through the fingers of a would-be captor, and generally contrives to make good its retreat. But the two most singular expedients adopted by beetles for purposes of self-protection have yet to be mentioned. (To be continued.) A WRECKED SOUL-A soul in ruins is a spectacle that moves angels to pity and awakens the commiseration of the infinite Father. And yet such ruins are numerous. They meet one at every turn and corner of life's appointed pathways, stalk by our sides, sit down at our tables, and mingle with us in festive throngs. It is not merely the debauchee, the drunkard, the gambler, that is a ruin, but others with a fair exterior but a bad heart. A soul-ruin is without an equal or parallel. The ruins of Baalbec, silent and impressive, are in comparison as nothing. |