“The main issue,” repeated the elater in a very loud voice, “is, What makes us beetles?”
“That’s something I’d like to know,” said a handsome little beetle in a striped coat. “I’m a beetle, if there ever was one, yet I have a world-wide reputation as a bug.”
“Pray don’t get excited, Mrs. Potato Bug. It isn’t your time to talk yet. We are on the main issue, and I will answer my own question.”
Ruth was glad some one would answer it, for at this rate it seemed they would never get anywhere.
“We are beetles for several reasons,” went on the elater. “In the first place, we belong to the order Coleoptera.”
Another tera, thought Ruth.
“That name is taken from a language called Greek, and means sheath wing. It is given to us because we have handsome outside wings which we use to cover our real flying wings. All beetles have them, though those of our cousin, Mr. Rove Beetle, are quite short.”
“That’s a fact,” said a rove beetle, “and no one need think we have outgrown our coats. It is simply a fashion in our family to wear our sheath wings short. We can always fold our true wings under them, and I’d like to see the fellow who says we can’t.”
“Well, you needn’t get so mad about it,” answered the elater in mild tones.
“And don’t curl your body up as if you were a wasp,” added Mrs. Sawyer. “Everybody knows you can’t sting.”