SOMETHING ABOUT BEETLES
(APRIL)
I expect that most of you have seen some of the wonderful foreign beetles, whose wing-covers gleam and sparkle with colour as though they were studded with jewels; and some of you, perhaps, may have envied the small Black Folks down south, who have the chance of finding such beautiful things. But if you have a microscope, or even a magnifying glass, or if you know some one who will lend you either, you need not envy the small Black Folks at all, for here, in our own dear country, there are hosts and hosts of beetles as beautiful as any in the world. But there is always a something, isn't there? and the something in this case is that they are so very, very small. There is another something, and that is that nearly all of them have such very, very long names. The reason for this is that the young people were not the first to find them. If they had done so they would certainly have given them names which grownups could understand, just as the young people of long ago christened Tom-Tit and Jenny Wren, and Daddy Long-legs and Flitter Mouse. All these names have lived since they were first made, and they will live, I think, long after some much more learned names for the same things have been altogether forgotten.
Now I must tell you how to find these beautiful little beetles, and I think that you will be able to find them very soon after you have read these lines, for the spring-time will have come, and the May will have flowered, and there is nothing that the little beetles like better than May-buds. All you have to do is to find a May-tree (it doesn't matter if it is white or pink, and it needn't even be a May-tree so long as there is plenty of blossom on it) and hit one of the branches with a stick, and hold a butterfly-net, or an old umbrella, or a piece of newspaper, or even your hat (an old hat is best) underneath, and catch what falls from the branches. You will find all sorts of things, but among them there are sure to be some tiny long-snouted beetles which are called Rhynchophora. That is a dreadful name, isn't it? but I think that the English word "weevils" is just as ugly. Though they are very small indeed, you will see at once that they have very wonderful colours. Probably you will catch an emerald-green one, and a sky-blue one, and perhaps a little square-shaped scarlet one, which is not very uncommon, and there may come a red-letter day when you catch one of the most beautiful little beetles in the world, who is green and crimson and gold. I have done this twice myself.
The Stag-Beetle
There are so many different beetles in our country that no one has ever collected all of them. Most are very small indeed, like the weevils, but a few are quite big, and I am showing you pictures of some of the largest.
Perhaps I ought to tell you how to know a beetle when you see one. This sounds easy enough, but it is not quite as easy as it sounds. All beetles have six legs (beetles' bodies are divided into three parts, and the legs grow out of the middle part); nearly all of them have strong, horny covers for their wings, and all of them have their skeletons outside. This sounds a very topsy-turvy arrangement, but it is quite true. We have our bones inside, and our flesh outside, but beetles have their bones outside and their flesh inside. Sometimes you may see beetles crushed flat in the road, but often they are trodden on or run over without being killed; and the reason for this is that their hard, outside skeletons prevent their soft insides from being altogether squashed up. Once I ran over a Stag-beetle on my bicycle—it was nearly dark at the time, and I was over him before I could get out of his way. Now a big Stag-beetle weighs about an eighth of an ounce, and I am rather a heavy person—indeed, with my bicycle thrown in I should think that I must weigh over two hundredweight, which is about thirty thousand times as much as the Stag-beetle. You can imagine how surprised I was to find that the Stag-beetle was not hurt. I ought to tell you, though, that the road was soft, and that my bicycle-tyres were not blown up hard, so perhaps the Stag-beetle did not get all my weight on his back—but, anyhow, it was a wonderful escape for him, wasn't it?
