Some of the flesh-eating beetles (Plate IX.) exhibit great ingenuity and intelligence in securing a food-supply and an asylum for their young at the same time. To their work is due the fact that the remains of few animals are found at the surface. The moment the latter die, these insects, and especially the grave-diggers (_Necrophorus_), appear. They run about the body, if upon the ground, inspecting it with great interest. If the animal is small, and the earth about it not suitable for its purpose, it is removed to softer ground; and here the beetles begin to dig, undermining the body, until in a very few hours it has disappeared or been completely buried. I have seen a garter snake covered in four hours, and some animals are sunk in this way a foot from the surface. The beetles then feed upon the body, and the female deposits her eggs there,--perhaps thirty white cylindrical objects, which in time hatch; the young being in this way provided with an ample supply of food. The Egyptian _Scarabæus_, noted for being found in the ancient tombs and monuments, and considered sacred by some of the natives, has an interesting method of caring for its future young. It encloses the eggs in round balls of various material suitable for food; a well is then dug several inches deep, into which the beetles roll the balls, then covering them: so that, when the young appears, it is encased in the food necessary to its existence. Passing the giant beetles of the tropics, and many others that have features of interest, we come to the forms called lightning-bugs, which, of all their tribe, impress us as marvellous, and which are especially associated with our present subject. “Sorrowing we beheld The night come on; but soon did night display More wonders than it veiled: innumerous tribes From the wood-cover swarmed, and darkness made Their beauties visible; one while they streamed A bright blue radiance upon flowers which closed Their gorgeous colors from the eye of day; Now motionless and dark, eluded search, Self-shrouded; and anon, starring the sky, Rose like a shower of fire.” Southey’s description of the South-American fire-flies does not ill apply to the midsummer night festivals held in our own woods and fields of the North, by the diamonds of the night. As twilight deepens, these living lights appear; creeping from beneath the bark of trees, out of the ground, or dropping from some distant limb; darting here and there in streams of light, soaring high in air, twinkling among the leaves; while down in the hollow, where the cat-tails rustle and nod, rises a veritable luminous cloud.