THE GOLDEN GARDENER.— COURTSHIP 113 



injured wing-covers had tempted his fellows by the sight 

 of his imperfectly covered back. They saw in their 

 defenceless comrade a permissible subject for dissection. 

 But do they respect one another when there is no 

 previous wound ? At first there was every appearance 

 that their relations were perfectly pacific. During their 

 sanguinary meals there is never a scuffle between the 

 feasters ; nothing but mere mouth-to-mouth thefts. 

 There are no quarrels during the long siestas in the 

 shelter of the board. Half buried in the cool earth, my 

 twenty-five subjects slumber and digest their food in 

 peace ; they lie sociably near one another, each in his 

 little trench. If I raise the plank they awake and are off, 

 running hither and thither, constantly encountering one 

 another without hostilities. 



The profoundest peace is reigning, and to all ap- 

 pearances will last for ever, when in the early days of 

 June I find a dead Gardener. Its limbs are intact ; 

 it is reduced to the condition of a mere golden husk ; 

 like the defenceless beetle I have already spoken of, it 

 is as empty as an oyster-shell. Let us examine the 

 remains. All is intact, save the huge breach in the 

 abdomen. So the insect was sound and unhurt when 

 the others attacked it. 



A few days pass, and anothei Gardener is killed and 

 dealt with as before, with no disorder in the component 

 pieces of its armour. Let us place the dead insect on its 

 belly ; it is to all appearances untouched. Place it on 

 its back ; it is hollow, and has no trace of flesh left 

 beneath its carapace. A little later, and I find another 

 empty relic ; then another, and yet another, until the 

 population of my menagerie is rapidly shrinking. If this 



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