less than two. When she finds that the piece she has brought is too large to fit the place intended, she cuts off what is superfluous, and carries away the shreds. By cutting the fresh petal of a poppy with a pair of scissors, we may perceive the difficulty of keeping the piece free from wrinkles and shrivelling; but the Bee knows how to spread the pieces which she uses as smooth as glass.

"When she has in this manner hung the little chamber all round with this splendid scarlet tapestry, of which she is not sparing, but extends it even beyond the entrance, she then fills it with the pollen of flowers mixed with honey, to the height of about half an inch. In this magazine of provisions for her future progeny she lays an egg, and over it folds down the tapestry of poppy-petals from above. The upper part is then filled with earth."*

Many other examples might be given of the wonderful instinct of Insects manifested in the construction of dwellings, as those of the Mud-wasps (Pelopœus) of America, the Termites of tropical Africa, and the Ants of all countries. For these, however, we must refer our readers to works specially devoted to the economy of Insects.

*Ins. Arch." 55.

M

CHAPTER XIX.

INSECTA (Insects).

Continued.

THIS Class of minute animals is so immense, that it would be impossible within our limits to give a hundredth part of what is on record concerning them, even if we omitted all technical details, and confined ourselves to that which is popularly interesting. The study of the whole Class is felt to be far too large for one human life to embrace with any degree of completeness, and hence we hear of men eminent as coleopterists, lepidopterists, hymenopterists, &c., from their having devoted themselves to some one or other of the subordinate groups of this vast assemblage. We shall just give a bird's-eye view of these subdivisions, indicating here and there some of the more prominent points of interest for which each is distinguished.

Chief among them stands, by universal consent, the order of Beetles, principally because they are the most "perfect" of Insects. By this term "perfect" as applied to structure, which has sometimes stumbled uninitiated students, we do not, however, mean to imply that a House-fly or a Bug is not as perfectly adapted for its mode of life as a Beetle, nor that it is in the least degree less worthy of an

Omnipotent Creator. The word is used by naturalists in a technical sense, to express the degree in which we find those peculiarities developed that constitute any particular group. Those peculiarities of structure, for example, that make an Insect what it is, and not a Worm or a Crustacean, are found to be present in the greatest intensity, and in the fullest combination, in the group of Beetles, and hence we say that these are the most perfect of their class. A Beetle is not more perfect as an animal than any other, but it is a more perfect insect, or rather, more perfectly an insect.

You may very readily identify a Beetle by its mouth being armed by two pairs of forceps-like jaws, and by its fore-wings being hardened into leathery sheaths for the hinder wings, and meeting in a straight line down the centre. The technical name COLEOPTERA, or Sheath-wings, expresses the latter character in Greek.

Many species of this group are pre-eminent for beauty of colour, especially the many-coloured refulgence of burnished metal, as in the Buprestida, and the Cetoniadiæ, and the Eumolpida, and others; and the lustre of the richest precious stones, as in many of the Diamond-beetles and others of the Curculionida, whose wing-sheaths under a lens look as if they were dusted with pounded gems.

The Glow-worm, that lights our hedge-banks with its feeble spark in the soft summer nights of July, is a Beetle, and so is the Firefly of the West Indies, that carries a pair of flaming lamps upon his back. The pretty scarlet Lady-bird, that appears to have had a "favourable eruption" of black buttons, is a little Beetle that every child knows and loves; and the dreadful Death-watch, that scratched the doom of our great-grandmothers on their

bedposts, is one still smaller. Very few of this great group render the slightest direct service to mankind; we do not at this moment recollect any but the Cantharis, or Blister-fly, which is useful in surgery.

Those insects which have the fore-wings somewhat leathery, but less rigid than those of Beetles, and sheathing the lower pair in such a way that their edges overlap each other, are called ORTHOPTERA, or Straight-wings. The Locust, Grasshopper, and Cricket, all of which make a crinking sort of music by rubbing their stiff wings in various ways over each other, are of this sort: and so is the Earwig, that spoils our dahlias by eating holes in their tender petals, and the ferocious Mantis of the tropics, that holds up its sawlike arms as if in the attitude of prayer (hence called Prie-Dieu), but really watching to smite down any unwary fly that may be passing, and to seize it between the locking-spines of its fore-arms.

Who that has sauntered by a river's side in the burning noon of summer is not familiar with the arrowy Dragonfly? He swoops down in wide curves, and just touches the water in his rushing flight, and turns, and darts to and fro, with a speed and a power that seem to mock the ringnet of the eager insect-hunter. The sun's ray gleams from the ample pinions as they speed past our eyes, as from surfaces of polished steel, and the long and slender body that is poised behind is clad in mail of green, and azure, and gold. Ha! we have struck down the bold warrior with our cane, and there it lies, spinning round in the grass, and rustling its beautiful wings, with tremulous vibrations, in its fruitless attempt to fly. Poor creature, thou wilt fly no more! no more will the vigorous impulses

of those filmy pinions bear thee aloft on the thin air, and carry thee in impetuous evolutions after thy tiny prey ! But what elegant organs these wings, now still in death, are they are like plates of talc of extremest thinness, through which expands a network of nerve-ribs, a lace that no collar on fair lady's neck ever equalled; every component thread of which is a tube communicating with the air-pipes or lungs of the body! How appropriate is the term NEUROPTERA, or Nerve-wings, for such Insects as these!

And now we come to the "industrial" classes, to use an expressive term of modern coinage. The Butterflies are fine ladies that go a-shopping among the flowers, the Beetles are the starred and jewelled nobility, the Dragonflies are warriors, true knights-errant furnished with the pomp and circumstance of war; but the humble, useful, ever busy Bee is an artisan—a representative of that class who are "fruges producere nati;" and not less industrious and skilful (though far from so serviceable to us) are its cousins, the Wasp and the Ant. The architectural instincts of these Insects we have briefly treated in the preceding chapter.

This order is termed HYMENOPTERA, or Membrane-wings; but the technical distinction between these and those which we have just dismissed is that these possess, at least in one sex, a horny tube at the extremity of the body, which is sometimes connected with a poison-bag, and is called a sting, and at others is simply an instrument for the piercing of animal or vegetable substances, in order to deposit eggs in them. But a much more obvious difference is found in the character of the wings, which are so