The Insectarium - Collecting, Arranging and Preserving Bugs, Beetles, Butterflies and More - With Practical Instructions to Assist the Amateur Home Naturalist

ON THE CAPTURE OF INSECTS.

BEETLES

NOT without reason have many naturalists placed beetles at the head of the insect world, for they exhibit the greatest variety of form, and in the household of nature occupy all conceivable positions and callings. These insects are called in science Coleoptera (from Gr., κολεóς, a sheath, and πτερόν, a wing), because the true membranous wings with which they fly are transversely folded, when in a state of repose, beneath another pair of protecting wings of a hard and horny texture, called elytra (Gr., ἔλυτρον, a covering).

Beetles are the best known and most numerous of all the insect tribes. Their immense numbers, the ease with which they may be preserved, the metallic brilliancy of some of the species, and the interesting habits of others, their singular forms, and the fact that all are harmless, and may therefore be handled with impunity, have won for them the enthusiasm of the collector and the love of the naturalist.

Coleoptera occur in almost every country capable of supporting animal life. Even the ungenial sun of Greenland and Iceland awakens to a short and precarious existence a few small species, which endure, or rather escape from, the rigours of an arctic winter by a kind of hibernation partly analogous to that of some of the vertebrate animals.

Beetles may be found beneath almost any piece of loose moss-covered wall, under any great stone that has been long undisturbed, the deeper sunk in the soil the better; or beneath the moss and lichen covering the trunks of old trees crumbling into decay: such places, carefully examined, will often prove to be the haunts of rare and beautiful species.

In very early spring, before the snow is melted, and when the rays of the sun fall obliquely, so that the earth is only slightly warmed, beetles are alive and active under stones, on grassy mound and heath, or by the wood and meadow pathway. If the stones are turned over in order to surprise them, these active little animals can soon be seized. No boy sharing the kindly feelings inseparable from a true naturalist will, without good and sufficient reason, deprive any creature, however humble, of its life; for all the handiworks of God enjoy the life and powers He has given them, have their part to perform in nature, and are, to a greater or less extent, useful. A beetle or spider running on the ground, or a bee or butterfly on the wing, in diligent search of the honey or pollen of flowers, seeking the food which its Creator has provided for it, or delighting in the pleasure of its existence, will be allowed to pass unmolested, unless it is really wanted as a specimen for the study