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It spins a large web, the monstrous appendages being apparently no impediment to it in its work; but what their use can be I am unable to divine. Coleoptera, or beetles, at first seemed to be very scarce.
I like your men of general intelligence well enough, your Linnwuses and your Buffons and your Cuviers; but Cuvier had to go to Latreille for his insects, and if Latreille had been able to consult me, yes, me, gentlemen! he would n't have made the blunders he did about some of the coleoptera.
But nowhere among the Crustacea is there a mode of development comparable to the "complete metamorphosis" of the Insecta, nowhere among the young or adult Crustacea are there forms which might resemble the maggots of the Diptera or Hymenoptera, the larvae of the Coleoptera, or the caterpillars of the Lepidoptera, still less any bearing even a distant resemblance to the quiescent pupae of these animals.
The number of Coleoptera was remarkable, seeing that this order is so poorly represented near Para. I attributed their abundance to the number of new clearings made in the virgin forest by the native settlers. The felled timber attracts lignivorous insects, and these draw in their train the predaceous species of various families.
The noise was continued at short intervals, and could be distinguished at about twenty yards' distance: I am certain there is no error in the observation. I was disappointed in the general aspect of the Coleoptera. The number of minute and obscurely coloured beetles is exceedingly great. The cabinets of Europe can, as yet, boast only of the larger species from tropical climates.
That is to say, the Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Neuroptera, Lepidoptera, etc., are in my opinion, more nearly allied to one another than they are to the Poduridæ or Smynthuridæ. On the other hand, we certainly cannot regard the Collembola as a group equivalent in value to the Insecta.
After my long experience, my numerous failures, and my one success, I feel sure that if any party of naturalists ever make a yacht-voyage to explore the Malayan Archipelago, or any other tropical region, making entomology one of their chief pursuits, it would well repay them to carry a small framed verandah, or a verandah-shaped tent of white canvas, to set up in every favourable situation, as a means of making a collection of nocturnal Lepidoptera, and also of obtaining rare specimens of Coleoptera and other insects.
Diversified structures possessed by the males for seizing the females Differences between the sexes, of which the meaning is not understood Difference in size between the sexes Thysanura Diptera Hemiptera Homoptera, musical powers possessed by the males alone Orthoptera, musical instruments of the males, much diversified in structure; pugnacity; colours Neuroptera, sexual differences in colour Hymenoptera, pugnacity and odours Coleoptera, colours; furnished with great horns, apparently as an ornament; battles, stridulating organs generally common to both sexes.
Even this he did with characteristic tenderness, never leaving a grasshopper to writhe on a pin for two days, but kindly giving him a drop of chloroform to pass him into the Buddhist's heaven of eternal repose. In the course of an hour or two he had adorned his hat with a variety of orthoptera, coleoptera, and all the other opteras known to the insect-catching profession.
In most Coleoptera the female is larger than the male, and it is therefore interesting, as bearing on the question of sexual selection, that in this case, as in the stag-beetles where the males fight together, they should be not only better armed, but also much larger than the females.
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