Beetles

Beetles are a diverse and wide-ranging class of insects in the order Coleoptera generally characterized by a particularly hard exoskeleton and hard forewings, and often an indistinct separation of body segments.

Quotes



 * An inordinate fondness for beetles.
 * J. B. S. Haldane, a possibly apocryphal reply to theologians who inquired if there was anything that could be concluded about the Creator from the study of creation; as described in "Homage to Santa Rosalia, or why are there so many kinds of animals" by G. Evelyn Hutchinson in American Naturalist (May-June 1959); This alludes to the fact that there are more types of beetles than any other form of insect, and more insects than any other kind of animal.


 * O'er folded blooms On swirls of musk, The beetle booms adown the glooms  And bumps along the dusk.
 * James Whitcomb Riley, The Beetle; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 64.


 * And often, to our comfort, shall we find The sharded beetle in a safer hold Than is the full-winged eagle.
 * William Shakespeare, Cymbeline (1611), Act III, scene 3, line 19.


 * And the poor beetle that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies.
 * William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (1603), Act III, scene 1, line 79.