CICTNDELA CAMPESTRIS. 51 



which was furnished with bright shining eyes, and a pair 

 of horrible jaws, held wide apart : these shears had doubt- 

 less cut the thread of existence for many a poor wanderer, 

 whose luckless star had led him to the abode of this child 

 of Erebus. 



I cut off the gentleman's retreat by passing a stick into 

 the sand sideways, so as to cross his burrow, and then with 

 a bit of a jerk unearthed him and laid him sprawling. O, 

 such a beauty ! the Parca?, sweet creatures, the Eumeni- 

 des, gentle turtle-doves, were lovely in comparison : I'll 

 describe the animal, with an eye to entomological science. 

 Aspect, vicious : temper, ferocious : jaws, stuck on the 

 wrong way, like a figure-head shipped looking aft : head, 

 big: back, humped, the hump adorned with two hooks. 

 When first unearthed, he was monstrous sulky, and lay 

 twisted in a kind of half-kink, for all the world like a 

 pot-hook : but he soon found the inconvenience of this, 

 and set to work to make another hole, for whicb he used 

 his feet and jaws, loosening the sand with his feet, and 

 fetching it out with his jaws ; in this way he got down 

 about half an inch, and then adroitly hanging himself to 

 the edge of the hole by the hook in his back, he continued 

 his labours in this droll position : at last he got quite out 

 of sight, and as he did not come up again, I concluded he 

 was taking a nap after his labour, and so I would not again 

 disturb him. 



This ugly grub, as my friend tells me, is the larva of 

 CICINDELA CAMPESTRIS, a beautiful green beetle, which 

 is common in all sandy places in the summer, and pursues 

 the whole insect race with unceasing ferocity. The gen- 

 tleman runs and flies so fast as to puzzle the hunter, and, 

 most commonly, to get away from him ; and when you do 



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