Saprini, Dermestes and Others 



the animal presses the tip of this crutch to 

 the ground and thrusts backwards as with a 

 lever, while the legs struggle forward. 

 Dore, 1 the famous illustrator of extrava- 

 gant notions, conceived a similar system. 

 He shows us somewhere a legless cripple 

 seated in a bowl supported by a pivot and 

 working himself along on his hands. The 

 artist's grotesque imagination might well 

 have been inspired by the grotesque appear- 

 ance of the insect. 



Even among its own kind, the crutched in- 

 sect is a bad neighbour. Very rarely do I 

 find two larvae under the same stone; and, 

 when this happens, one of the two is always 

 in a pitiful state: the other is devouring it 

 as if it were its ordinary game. Let us 

 watch this conflict of two cannibals, each 

 thirsting for the other's blood. 



In the arena furnished by a tumbler con- 

 taining some moist sand, I place two larvae 

 of equal strength. The moment they face 

 each other, they suddenly rear up, bending 

 their bodies backwards, with the six legs in 

 the air, hooks of the mandibles wide open 

 and the anal crutch firmly fixed. They look 



1 Gustave Dore (1833-1883), the French illustrator of 

 Dante, Rabelais, La Fontaine and many others. Trans- 

 lator's Note. 



51 



