How is that? These are flies in amber. Amber is clear, hard, and bright yellow. It is used for jewelry. Sometimes we see a perfect fly, held in a clear, light mass of amber. How did it come there? The amber was once a soft gum and the fly lit on it. It stuck fast, and the amber flowed over it and grew hard, and so buried the fly in a clear, golden tomb. A piece of amber with a fly in it will bring a high price. The “Spanish fly” is a large blue-green beetle. It is very handsome, and is most useful when it is dead. It is used in medicine. It makes blisters on the skin. Do you say, “Oh, blisters are very bad!” Yes, they cause pain. But even pain can be of use in this world. The blister, though it pains us, is of use. It cures what might be a worse pain. This Spanish fly is not a fly at all. It is a beetle which has been given a fly’s name. It is put here at the end of the lessons on flies, because in the next lessons you are to read about beetles. LESSON XXII. IN ARMOR CLAD. Go to the garden or to the house plants, and after a little search you will find one of the wonders of the world. You will find a small, horny, shining, red thing with black spots on its back. “Why!” you say “that is only a lady-bug, or lady-bird. We say a little rhyme to it.” The rhyme is-- “Lady-bird, lady-bird, Fly away home! Your house is on fire And your children will roam.” Yes, it is one of the beetles, and every beetle is a wonder. Come, study this wonder. The winged insects are divided into two great classes, Eaters and Drinkers. That is what their Latin names mean. Butterflies, house-flies, bees, and others, are drinkers. That is, they get their food by sucking it through a pipe or tube. This tube is on the fore part of the head; it is really the upper lip grown long and round. The other great class, the Eaters, eat their food with their mouths. Some suck or lick it; some use their jaws to crush and break their food. Beetles belong to the class Eaters. The beetles are covered with a hard, horny shell, like a case. In this they are like the old-time soldiers, who wore armor from head to foot. Beetles belong to the great family of the ring-made creatures. Take a large, round beetle, with big jaws, feelers, and legs. Does he not look much like Mr. Crab, who is also ring-made? In the pictures in this lesson you see Mr. Crab and Mr. Beetle. This is a large beetle that likes to live among the grasses and weeds near the seashore. When he and Mr. Crab meet on the sand they may think they are cousins. [Illustration: Mr. Beetle.] Now let us get a beetle and look at him closely. You will often find dead beetles on your path or in the grass. You can take them to pieces and compare them with what you read about them. The first thing that you will notice in the beetle is the hard case over the wing. The wing-cases look like little shells, and have a nice hinge to hold them in their place.