112 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



service, it is introduced into the glass dwelling of its 

 twenty-five future companions. 



Next day I look for the new inmate. It is dead. Its 

 comrades have attacked it during the night and have 

 cleaned out its abdomen, insufficiently protected by the 

 damaged wing-covers. The operation has been performed 

 very cleanly, without any dismemberment. Claws, head, 

 corselet, all are correctly in place ; the abdomen only 

 has a gaping wound through which its contents have 

 been removed. What remains is a kind of golden shell, 

 formed of the two conjoined elytra. The shell of an 

 oyster emptied of its inmate is not more empty. 



This result astonishes me, for I have taken good care 

 that the cage should never be long without food. The 

 snail, the pine-cockchafer, the Praying Mantis, the lob- 

 worm, the caterpillar, and other favourite insects, have 

 all been given in alternation and in sufficient quantities. 

 In devouring a brother whose damaged armour lent itself 

 to any easy attack my beetles had not the excuse of 

 hunger. 



Is it their custom to kill the wounded and to evis- 

 cerate such of their fellows as suffer damage ? Pity is 

 unknown among insects. At the sight of the desperate 

 struggles of a crippled fellow-creature none of the same 

 family will cry a halt, none will attempt to come to its 

 aid. Among the carnivorous insects the matter may 

 develop to a tragic termination. With them, the passers- 

 by will often run to the cripple. But do they do so in 

 order to help it ? By no means : merely to taste its 

 flesh, and, if they find it agreeable, to perform the most 

 radical cure of its ills by devouring it. 



It is possible, therefore, that th** Gardener with the 



