in others there is less care, less elaboration, less neatness, even amounting to slovenliness and carelessness. And the eggs too differ, not only in size, but also in colour and in ornamentation. The eggs of such birds as the Kestrel, and especially of the Guillemot (a water-bird), vary so much in their markings that two can rarely be found absolutely alike, and yet the general colour and the character of the markings are so decided that there is never any difficulty in determining the bird to which they belong. In our juvenile days we remember that schoolboys in the country were always ambitious to outnumber each other in the birds' eggs collected during a season. For this purpose the shells were threaded upon a string as they were plundered, and in many cottages a long trophy of birds' egg-shells hung suspended from the ceiling. This barbarous practice is now checked, and it is hoped that farmers and gardeners are beginning to learn that small birds are their greatest friends.

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CHAPTER IX.

BEETLES.

INSECTS abound wherever vegetable life is profuse. The green plant or the decaying plant furnishes food to myriads of minute insects; larger carnivorous insects find here the favourable conditions which their habits demand; hence they collect in such spots, and prey upon the smaller and weaker. Birds and reptiles follow the insects; quadrupeds in their turn follow the birds. The flesh-feeders thus depending one upon another for existence, have a primary dependence upon vegetable life. There are, of course, exceptions to this, in the case of the quadrupeds and birds which are direct vegetable-feeders. In all cases the original source of support to animal life lies in the vegetable; hence, wherever there is the greatest variety of plants there will naturally be the greatest variety of animals, whether quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, or insects.1

1 "Facts serve to show," writes C. V. Riley, "that, seek where we may, we cannot find a place or a substance in which or on which some insect does not feed. They people the atmosphere around us, swim at ease in the water, and penetrate the solid earth beneath our feet, while some of them inhabit indifferently all three of these elements at different epochs of their lives."

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Insects, unlike the higher animals, have three stages of existence-the caterpillar stage, the pupa or chrysalis stage, and the imago, or perfect insect. Through these stages they all pass, whether beetles, bugs, butterflies, moths, bees, flies, &c. From each of the preliminary stages the entomologist can determine the ultimate order to which the mature insect will belong. The immense number of insects which spring into existence during every month of the year whereever there is vegetation, would startle those who have had no experience amongst them. "From such considerations," writes Schrank, are we not alarmed for our forests, gardens, and groves? Do not these innumerable millions of insects which incessantly labour at their destruction confuse our understanding when we begin to reckon them, and terrify our imagination which magnifies them? And can I be believed if I assert that I discover beneficence in such unspeakable destruction, beauty in these devastations, wisdom in this disorder, and life in this manifold death? Nevertheless it is so. Whatever many may say of nature growing old, the naturalist finds her always young and beautiful, always estimable, just as she came from the hand of her Creator, and as she, indeed, every moment issues afresh from the hand of the Almighty Being. In His hand the youth of nature is continually renewed, and under His all-ruling providence all the millions of apparently destructive beings only labour in preserving her existence and embellishment."

Insects are classed by those who study them in several groups or orders, each of which has some feature which is peculiar to all the genera and species

which the order contains. Beetles have two membranous wings, which are folded up and concealed during repose beneath a pair of hard, horny, or leathery wing-cases. Butterflies and moths have four wings, covered with minute scales. Bees, wasps, &c., have four clear, transparent wings, and flies (as they are usually termed), or Diptera, have two transparent wings. Thus through all the orders a general feature prevails, by means of which the insects of one order may be distinguished from those of another. Beetles are the first insects to which our attention must be directed, and they may best be illustrated by one of the most common and best known of our indigenous species.

The habits and transformations of the common Cockchafer have been carefully observed, and will serve to exemplify those of the other insects of this family, which, as far as they are known, seem to be nearly the same. This insect devours the leaves of trees and shrubs. Its duration in the perfect state is very short, each individual living only about a week, and the species entirely disappearing in the course of a month. After the sexes have paired, the males perish, and the females enter the earth to the depth of six inches or more, making their way by means of the strong teeth which arm the forelegs; here they deposit their eggs, amounting, according to some writers, to nearly one hundred, or, as others assert, to two hundred, from each female, which are abandoned by the parent, who generally ascends again to the surface, and perishes in a short time.

From the eggs are hatched, in the space of fourteen

days, little whitish grubs, each provided with six legs near the head, and a mouth furnished with strong jaws. When in a state of rest, these grubs usually curl themselves in the shape of a crescent. They subsist on the tender roots of various plants, committing ravages among these vegetable substances on some occasions of the most deplorable kind, so as totally to disappoint the best-founded hopes of the husbandman. During the summer they live under the thin coat of vegetable mould near the surface, but as winter approaches they descend below the reach of frost, and remain torpid until the succeeding spring, at which time they change their skins, and reascend to the surface for food. At the close of their third summer (or as some say of their fourth or fifth), they cease eating, and penetrate about two feet deep into the earth; there each grub by its motions from side to side forms an oval cavity, which is lined by some glutinous substance thrown from its mouth. In this cavity it is changed to a pupa by casting off its skin. In this state the legs, antennæ, and wing-cases of the future beetle are visible through the transparent skin which envelops them, but appear of a yellowish-white colour, and thus the pupa remains till February, when the thin film which encloses the body is rent, and three months afterwards the perfected beetle digs its way to the surface, from which it finally emerges during the night. According to Kirby and Spence, the grubs of the cockchafer sometimes destroy whole acres of grass by feeding on its roots. They undermine the richest meadows, and so loosen the turf that it will roll up as if cut by a turfing-spade. They do