And now what are we to say of the next, Necydalis major, a denizen of the poplar and the willow in his larval state? He is a Longicorn, fairly imposing in size as compared with Cerambyx cerdo, the little Capricorn of the hawthorn. When one is a Beetle—and that he assuredly is—one dons wing-cases which form a sheath, enclosing the body and protecting the delicate wings and the soft and vulnerable abdomen. The Necydalis laughs at rules. He wears on his shoulders, by way of wing-cases, two short pieces which make him an inadequate jacket. It really looks as though there were not sufficient stuff to lengthen out the coat and give it a pair of tails capable of covering that which ought to be covered. Beyond it stretch, entirely unprotected, two large wings reaching to the tip of the abdomen. At first sight, you would think that you had before your eyes some sort of huge, fantastic Wasp. Why, in an actual Beetle, this niggardly provision of wing-cases? Can the material have run short? Was the cost of prolonging the protective sheath begun at the shoulders too great? We stand amazed at such meanness. What again shall we say of this other Beetle, Myodites subdipterus? Her grub establishes itself, I know not how, in the cells of Halictus zebra [87] and battens on the nymph that owns the premises. The adult frequents in summer the prickly heads of the field eringo. To look at her, you would take her for a Dipteron, for a Fly, because of her two big wings uncovered by wing-cases. Examine her more closely and you will see that she carries on her shoulders two small scales, all that remains of the suppressed wing-cases. She is yet another who has not known how or rather has not been able to complete the parts of which she carries these absurd rudiments. An entire group, one of the most numerous among the Beetles, that of the Staphylini, or Rove-beetles, cuts down its wing-cases to a third or a quarter of the normal dimensions. With excessive economy, the insect with the long, wriggling belly makes itself unsightly and goes too scantily clad. I might continue for a long time to enumerate the deformed, the irregular, the exceptional; the “whys” would follow close upon one another and no reply would be forthcoming. Animals are uncommunicative; plants, when cunningly entreated, lend themselves better to enquiry. Let us consult them on this problem of anomalies; perhaps they will tell us something. The rose-tree sets us this puzzle: “We are five brothers; two of us have beards, two have none and the fifth has half a beard.” The case has even been stated in a Latin couplet: Quinque sumus fratres: units barbatus et alter; Imberbesque duo; sum semiberbis ego.