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These facts have long since been carefully studied and leave no room for doubt. The Claviger testaceus is a small beetle, often met in the dwellings of ants. Nature has not been very generous on its behalf. It is blind, and its eyes are indeed altogether atrophied. The elytra are soldered at the median edge, so that it cannot spread its wings to fly.
The wide distribution of species inhabiting fresh water compared with those living on land has not, as we have seen, escaped the comprehensive mind of Darwin, and in explanation of the fact, he has shown how fresh-water shells may be carried from pool to pool, or from one river or lake to others many miles distant, sticking to the feet of water-fowl, or to the elytra of water-beetles.
The wings and elytra stand erect over the locust's back like an immense set of sails; at first colourless, then of a tender green, like the freshly expanded wings of the Cigale. I am amazed at their expanse when I think of the miserable stumps from which they have expanded. How did so much material contrive to occupy so little space?
These ribs are scraped against the posterior margins of the elytra, a small portion of which projects beyond the general outline. I am greatly indebted to Mr. G.R. Crotch for having sent me many prepared specimens of various beetles belonging to these three families and to others, as well as for valuable information.
The Elytra would open the wings, and the legs would move, as by association they had moved in the perfect insect. The guidance of the head was destroyed, yet the legs pushed the abdomen and corselet on; so that a disapproving friend had to divide his sympathy, and to feel for each of the pieces.
Their free ends stick up like the gable of a house. They remind one of the skirts of a coat, the maker of which has been ludicrously stingy with the cloth, as they merely cover the creature's nakedness at the small of the back. Underneath there are two narrow appendages, the germs of the wings, which are even smaller than the elytra.
J.W. Douglas, who has particularly attended to the British species, has kindly given me an account of their sexual differences. The males of some species are furnished with wings, whilst the females are wingless; the sexes differ in the form of their bodies, elytra, antennae and tarsi; but as the signification of these differences are unknown, they may be here passed over.
They were the remnants of insects caught by frogs; great bulky fellows that excited one's curiosity to know how ever they got there. Amongst the elytra were those of beetles that I had never taken, and as they were night-roaming species, I determined to go up some evening and wait until dark, with a lanthorn, to see if I could take any of them.
Slowly the superb erection composed of the four flat fan-like pinions assumes rigidity and colour. By to-morrow the colour will have attained the requisite shade. For the first time the wings close fan-wise and lie down in their places; the elytra bend over at their outer edges, forming a flange which lies snugly over the flanks. The transformation is complete.
These, in their normal form, are curious wedge-shaped beetles, which are common on flowers, and leap like fleas. In some of the Nicaraguan species the body is lengthened, and the thorax and elytra coloured, so as to resemble wasps and flies.
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