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I see other nervures in the intervals, pale and very fine. Finally, still more delicate, and running transversely, a number of very short nervures complete the pattern. Certainly this resembles a rough sketch of the future wing-case; but how different from the mature structure!
It is curious, that all the seventeen kinds of Copris of South America known to us, have but seven stripes upon each wing-case; whereas those of the Old World have eight: the larger kinds, Hamadrias, Bucephalus, and Isidis, alone agree with the South American in the number of stripes.
You could not find an ornament to match it save on the throats of certain Humming-birds and the wings of a few Butterflies in equatorial climes. Cf. The Life of the Fly: chap. vii. To adorn itself like this, in what Golconda does the insect gather its gems? In what diggings does it find its gold nuggets? What a pretty problem is that of a Buprestis' wing-case!
We have had opportunities of showing that the Cricket, the Grasshopper and many others draw their bow, which is on the right wing-case, over the sounding apparatus, which is on the left wing-case. They are right-handed. When you and I take an unpremeditated turn, we spin round on our right heel. The left side, the weaker, moves on the pivot of the right, the stronger.
The sand around, soft beneath and thinly crusted upon the surface, is everywhere pierced with holes made by a beautifully mottled and semi-diaphanous crab, with hairy legs, big staring eyes, and milk-white claws; while in the green sedges beyond there is a perpetual rustling, as of some strong wind beating among reeds: a marvellous creeping of "fiddlers," which the inexperienced visitor might at first mistake for so many peculiar beetles, as they run about sideways, each with his huge single claw folded upon his body like a wing-case.
Duppo brought us a large wood-cricket, called the Tanana, the wonderfully loud and not unmusical notes of which we had often heard. These sounds, we found, were produced by the overlapping edges of the wing-cases, which they rub together. In each wing-case the inner edge, near the lower part, has a horny expansion.
For all its abuses, this manner of honouring the departed is eminently respectable. If we would carve an epitaph of some duration, what could we find better than a Beetle's wing-case, a Snail's shell or a Spider's web? Granite is worth none of them. Entrusted to the hard stone, an inscription becomes obliterated; entrusted to a Butterfly's wing, it is indestructible.
While a dictation lesson was being corrected around me, with generous assistance from the dictionary, I would examine, in the recesses of my desk, the oleander's fruit, the snapdragon's seed vessel, the wasp's sting and the ground beetle's wing-case. With this foretaste of natural science, picked up haphazard and by stealth, I left school more deeply in love than ever with insects and flowers.
A fine transparent cushion limits the free edge of the embryo wing and the embryo wing-case. Under a powerful microscope we can perceive therein a few doubtful lineaments of the future lace-work. This might well be the factory in which life will shortly set its materials in movement.
The insect has an inflated bladder-like shape, owing to the great convexity of the thin, firm, parchmenty wing-cases; the little creature being of a pale green colour. The instrument by which it produces its music is contrived out of the ordinary nervures of the wing-case. In each wing-case the under edge of the wing itself has a horny lobe.
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