More Beetles 



must be plump, of a good size and not too re- 

 pulsive in appearance. Now by a curious 

 freak of scientific nomenclature it happens 

 that the name of Cossus has been allotted to 

 the mighty caterpillar ^ whose galleries 

 honeycomb old willows: a hideous, malodor- 

 ous creature, the colour of wine-lees. No 

 gullet, not even a Roman's, would have 

 dared to swallow anything so loathsome. 

 The Cossus of the modern naturalists is cer- 

 tainly not that of the epicures of old. 



In addition to the larvae of the Capricorn 

 and the Stag-beetle, which have been identi- 

 fied by the writers with Pliny's famous worm, 

 I know another which, in my opinion, would 

 fulfil the requisite conditions even better. I 

 will tell you how I discovered it. 



The short-sighted law of the land has 

 nothing to say to the slayer of noble trees, 

 the unimaginative fool who, for a handful of 

 crown-pieces, pillages the stately woods, lays 

 bare the countryside, dries up the clouds and 

 turns the soil into a parching slag-heap. 

 There was in my neighbourhood a magnifi- 

 cent clump of pine-trees, the joy of the Black- 

 bird, the Thrush, the Jay, and other passers- 

 by, of whom I was one and not the least as- 



1 Cossus ligniperda, the caterpillar of Xylentes cossus, 

 the Great Goat-moth. — Translator's Note. 

 176 



