Gold Beetles: Their Nuptial Habits 



between the feasters at their meals, nothing 

 but mouth-to-mouth robberies. Nor are 

 there any quarrels during the long siestas 

 under the cover of the board. Half-buried 

 in the cool earth, my five-and-twenty speci- 

 mens quietly slumber and digest their food, 

 at no great distance one from the other, 

 each in his little trench. If I take away the 

 shelter, they awake, make off, run hither and 

 thither, constantly meeting without molesting 

 one another. 



Profound peace therefore prevails and 

 seems likely to last for ever when, on inspect- 

 ing the cage during the first heats of June, I 

 find a dead Carabus. His limbs are intact; 

 he is very neatly reduced to a mere golden 

 husk; he shows us once more what we saw 

 in the helpless Beetle who was lately de- 

 voured; he reminds us of the shell of the 

 eaten Oyster. I examine the remains. But 

 for the huge breach in the abdomen, all is as 

 it should be. So the insect was in good 

 health when the others gutted it. 



A few days later, yet another Carabus is 

 slain and treated like the others, with all the 

 various pieces of the armour undisturbed. 

 If we lay him on his belly, he seems as 

 though intact; if we lay him on his back, he 

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