Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Entomology.djvu/210

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
204
SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT.

number of simple eyes, the only kind with which these larvæ are provided, varies from one to six; the former is exemplified by Telephorus, the latter by Carabus. In the larvæ of Cicindelæ the two posterior ones have a red pupil surrounded by a pale iris. The larvæ of many different kinds—commonly termed grubs by husbandmen—are productive of great injury to cultivated plants, both when growing, and after they have been harvested.

Of all the orders perhaps this is the one that has been most studied, a preference which it owes to the great beauty of many of its foreign species, the endless diversity and singularity of their forms, the distinctness of their external parts, and the ease with which they can be preserved in unimpaired beauty for an indefinite length of time, as well as other considerations, calculated to recommend them to notice. It is partly from the zeal with which they have been sought after, that their number has always appeared so much greater than that of the other orders, which, now that they have attracted more attention, are found to make a nearer approach to them in this respect than was formerly imagined; still, however, the preserved examples are considerably most numerous, as is likewise, there can be no doubt, their absolute amount in nature. The collection of the Count De Jean has been augmented, in the short period that has elapsed since we last mentioned the amount of its contents, to nearly 23,000 species, and it is conjectured that about 6000 or 7000 others exist in the Parisian cabinets. The collection of beetles in