More Beetles 



liberty In the fields : perhaps they would not 

 thrive so well, for food is not so abundant 

 there as in the cage. As regards comfort, 

 therefore, the prisoners are in a normal con- 

 dition favouring the preservation of their 

 usual habits. 



Only, meetings of kinsfolk occur more 

 often here than in the open. This, no doubt, 

 affords the females better opportunities to 

 persecute the males for whom they have no 

 further use, to grab them by the rump and 

 disembowel them. This hunting of the by- 

 gone lovers is aggravated but certainly not 

 innovated by the too close vicinity: such cus- 

 toms are never improvised. 



When the mating is over, a female meet- 

 ing a male in the open must then treat him 

 as fair game and munch him up in order to 

 close the matrimonial rites. I have turned 

 over many stones but have never chanced 

 upon this spectacle ; no matter : what I saw in 

 the cage is enough to convince me. What a 

 world the Gold Beetle lives in, where the 

 matron devours her partner when she no 

 longer needs him to fertilize her ovaries! 

 And how lightly do the laws of creation hold 

 the males, to allow them to be butchered in 

 this way! 



312 



