Excerpt from The Young Beetle-Collector's Handbook The Coleoptera, or Beetles, form the largest of all the Orders of Insects, numbering, as is estimated, about species, whilst the total number of insects known is about In this country we have over species, which is about one-fourth of the British insect fauna. Beetles are distinguished from other insects by having a pair of hard or leathery wing-cases, or elytra, which cover the true wings, which are membranous. The elytra generally meet in a straight line down the back, known as the suture. The body of a beetle is divided into head, thorax, and abdomen. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.