158 London Insects. 



passion for collecting insects, a tender heart the 

 two qualities are apt to clash at times, but a boy 

 may be taught to study Nature and make collections 

 without any promiscuous killing caught and brought 

 home in triumph one day a big Beetle, the catch of 

 his season. It was consigned to a poison bottle, 

 strong enough to have exterminated a family of 

 Butterflies, and taken out in due course dead. But 

 as after a time there was a suspicion of something 

 like galvanic movement in one leg, to make assurance 

 doubly sure, it was put into boiling water, and when 

 all possibility of latent life was past, pinned for 

 the cabinet. Some days afterwards the Beetle was 

 met deliberately walking down the front stairs, 

 carrying with it the pin, which it had drawn from 

 the cork for itself, with as much sang froid as if 

 it had been a smart gentleman strolling down 

 St. James's Street, with a gold-headed cane under 

 his arm. Had the lady who first met it had nerve 

 to stay to look, she would probably have seen a 

 malicious grin on the terrible insect's face, as it 

 chuckled at the thought of the mental torture with 

 which it was to repay its captor. 



If Beetles have antiquarians among them as well as 

 type-writers, the learned may some day speculate on 

 the origin of the cairn of stones and brick-bats under 

 which the wing-cases, thorax, legs, and all else that 

 was mortal in their champion the direct descendant 

 of the Beetle-god worshipped in ancient Egypt 

 slept at last. 



Though use has already been made to an extent 

 almost unjustifiable of leave most kindly given by 

 Professor Owen to pilfer from his works, as this is a 

 chapter on Natural History in London, one more 

 passage must be borrowed, because, coming as it docs 



