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Updated: June 4, 2025
"You are a funny little thing!" exclaimed Martin, feeling now less like crying than laughing. The wee beetle, satisfied and refreshed, climbed up the grass-blade, and when it reached the tip lifted its dusty black wing-cases just enough to throw out a pair of fine gauzy wings that had been neatly folded up beneath them, and flew away.
When the insect rapidly moves its wings, the file of the one lobe is scraped sharply across the horny margin of the other, thus producing the sounds; the parchmenty wing-cases and the hollow drum-like space they enclose assisting to give resonance to the tones.
Newly stripped of his cast-off nymphal skin, the Sacred Beetle possesses a strange costume, bearing no resemblance to the ebony black which will be the portion of the mature insect. The head, legs and thorax are a bright rusty red; the wing-cases and abdomen are white.
He pictured in fancy the black locks that had scented this diadem with the sphinx's head, the slim brown arms these, beads of gold and lapis lazuli had touched, the shoulders that had worn these vulture's wings, the peaked bosoms these chains and gorgets had confined, the breast that had once communicated its warmth to yonder gold scarabæus with the blue wing-cases, the little royal hand that once held that poniard by the hilt wrought over with flowers and women's faces.
Nearly all furnish striking examples of colour protection. One variety of the mantis here is black and rugged, and is to be found only on charred wood. The wing-cases present the characteristic grain and glint of fresh charcoal, distinctly showing the influence of the condition of its environment.
When the insect rapidly moves its wings, the file of the one lobe is scraped sharply across the horny margin of the other, thus producing the sounds; the parchmenty wing-cases and the hollow drum-like space which they enclose assist in giving resonance to the tones.
The effort being suddenly relaxed, the head and thorax flew up, and in consequence, the base of the wing-cases struck the supporting surface with such force, that the insect by the reaction was jerked upwards to the height of one or two inches. The projecting points of the thorax, and the sheath of the spine, served to steady the whole body during the spring.
Before he could struggle to his long legs and climb back to the safer region of the grass-tops, the little mouse was upon him. Sharp, white teeth pierced his green mail, his legs kicked convulsively twice or thrice, and the faint iridescence faded out of his big, blank, foolish eyes. The mouse made his meal with relish, daintily discarding the dry legs and wing-cases.
With their long legs, their forehead with its radiating denticulations and their flattened wing-cases, they are fairly successful smaller editions of the famous pill-roller. They also share her talent. The work of both is once again a sort of pear, but constructed in a more ingenious fashion, with an almost conical neck and without any elegant curves.
In the way of industry, nothing or next to nothing. Nevertheless the dull butcher is magnificent in his indescribably sumptuous jerkin. It has the refulgency of copper pyrites, of gold, of Florentine bronze. While clad in black, he enriches his sombre costume with a vivid amethyst hem. On the wing-cases, which fit him like a cuirass, he wears little chains of alternate pins and bosses.
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