The cockchafer is common everywhere in spring, and if you shake a young birch-tree, or a hazel-bush, three or four of the great clumsy insects will very likely come tumbling down. They are rather more than an inch long, very stoutly and heavily built, and are chestnut brown in color, while their bodies are drawn out into a kind of point behind. The grubs of these beetles live underground, and do a great deal of mischief in fields and gardens, for they feed upon the roots of the plants, and very soon kill them.
Dor-beetles, too, are very common everywhere. You may often see them flying round and round in great circles on warm summer evenings, making a loud humming noise as they do so. They often blunder in at open windows, attracted by the lamplight, and children are afraid of them, but they can do no harm. If you catch one you will find that it is nearly black. You will also see that its front legs are broad and strong, and that they are set with a row of stout horny teeth. With these legs the beetle digs, using them with such address that in the course of an hour or two it will sink a hole in the ground ten or twelve inches deep, in order to lay its eggs at the bottom.
The famous Scarabæus of Egypt, which in days of old some of the people of that country used to revere, because they thought it a symbol of immortality, is really a kind of dor-beetle.
Skipjacks and Glowworms
Skipjacks, too, are beetles. You may know them by their long, narrow, glossy bodies, and by the fact that the head is hidden under the thorax, so that you can hardly see it from above. One very odd thing about them is that they are constantly losing their footing and rolling over on their backs; and their bodies are so shiny, and their legs are so short, that when they do so they cannot get up again in the ordinary manner. But after lying still for a moment they arch themselves into the form of a bow, resting only upon their heads and the very tips of their tails, and suddenly spring into the air, making an odd clicking noise as they do so. And as they fall they turn half round, and so alight upon their feet. For this reason they are often known as click-beetles.
These insects are the parents of the well-known wireworms, which often do such mischief in our fields and gardens, living underground for three or even four years, and feeding upon the roots of the crops, and of such bushes as the currant.
Then the glowworm is a beetle. Perhaps you may have seen its little pale green lamp shining in the grass on a summer evening. The light comes from a liquid inside the hind part of the body, the skin of which is transparent, and forms a kind of window, so that it can shine through; and the insect has the power of turning on its light and shutting it off at will. The lamp of the female beetle is very much brighter than that of the male, and while the male has both wing-cases and wings, and can fly very well indeed, those of the female are so small that one can hardly see them. Indeed, she looks much more like a grub than a beetle.
Deathwatches and Oil-Beetles
Deathwatches are small brown beetles which burrow into dead wood and call to one another by tapping with their horny heads. You may often hear them if you happen to be lying awake at night in a room in which there is old woodwork; and in former days people were silly enough to think that when this sound was heard it was a sign that somebody in the house was going to die! That is why these beetles are called deathwatches. They are quite small, and are brown in color, with rather long feelers and legs.
Crawling on grassy banks in the warm sunshine on bright spring days, you may often see a number of oil-beetles. These are large bluish-black insects which have an odd habit, if you pick them up, of squeezing out little drops of a yellow oily liquid from the joints of their legs! This oil has a pungent smell, and no doubt prevents birds, etc., from eating them. You will notice that the female beetles have enormous hind bodies, which they can hardly drag along over the ground. This is because they contain such a very large number of eggs, thirty thousand often being laid by a single beetle. She places them in batches in holes in the ground, and very soon afterward they hatch, and odd-looking little grubs with six long legs come out of them. No sooner have they left the egg-shells than these tiny creatures hunt about for a flower with sweet juices, which is likely to be visited by a wild bee. When they find one, they climb up the stem and hide among the petals. Then, when the bee comes, they spring upon it and cling to its hairy body, and so are carried back to its nest, where they feed upon the food which the bee had stored up for its little ones.