The low stunted flowering shrubs covering large patches of both the eastern and western coasts support an immense number of Jewel-beetles, Genus _Stigmodera_, also peculiar to this continent. We appear to have few forms allied to North or South America; our affinities are with Africa, and the Malay Peninsula; insects of well sustained flight, as the Orthoptera, are found here identical with species found in Africa and Asia. Many insects abundant in the eastern coastal districts are very limited in their range; but on the western watershed others may be found ranging right across to the Indian Ocean. STRUCTURE. The imago or perfect insect is encased in a more or less perfect horny integument composed of a substance called chiten, which forms in many a regular box containing all the vital organs. Every insect can be divided into three primary divisions: first, the head, to which is attached the mouth parts, antennae, and eyes; second, the thorax or chest, sometimes forming a solid mass, but properly composed of three segments, namely, the prothorax, mesothorax, and metathorax, to which are attached three pairs of legs, and two pairs of wings (there are, however, many exceptions to the last, as some have only one pair, and others are wingless); third, the abdomen or body, consisting of a number of segments variously estimated from five to eleven, the normal number being ten, which enclose the digestive, breathing, and reproductive organs. Every insect in the first instance comes from an egg or living larva produced by the female, and though, even to the naturalist, it seems very hard to account for the countless millions of some of the smaller insects such as aphids and scale insects which suddenly swarm as if by magic over plants, there is no such thing as spontaneous generation; insects cannot come out of the ground from nothing, or be produced from the crystalline dew upon the foliage as we have sometimes found stated in newspapers. Again, a grain weevil cannot change into a flour moth, or _vice versa_, as many of our farmers will say in all good faith. In some groups the insects are produced as living larvae, and commence to feed at once; but in the majority, eggs are deposited in or upon the food, in which state they may remain without hatching but a few days, or more than a year. As soon as the little caterpillar or grub emerges, it starts upon its food, spending the whole of this stage of its existence in eating and growing, moulting at intervals by casting off the outer skin to accommodate its increasing bulk; when full-grown and ready for the final moult, it stops eating, crawls away into a suitable place, and forms a cocoon, cell, or shell, in which it pupates. It is now a chrysalis or pupa, quiescent, without any movement except a slight twitching of the tip of the abdomen when disturbed. Under the pupal covering the different organs of the perfect insect