Some Anomalies 



the hawthorn. When one is a Beetle — and 

 that he assuredly is — one dons wing-cases 

 which form a sheath, enclosing the body and 

 protecting the delicate wings and the soft and 

 vulnerable abdomen. The Necydalis laughs 

 at rules. He wears on his shoulders, by 

 way of wing-cases, two short pieces which 

 make him an inadequate jacket. It really 

 looks as though there were not sufficient 

 stuff to lengthen out the coat and give it a 

 pair of tails capable of covering that which 

 ought to be covered. 



Beyond it stretch, entirely unprotected, 

 two large wings reaching to the tip of the 

 abdomen. At first sight, you would think 

 that you had before your eyes some sort of 

 huge, fantastic Wasp. Why, in an actual 

 Beetle, this niggardly provision of wing- 

 cases? Can the material have run short? 

 Was the cost of prolonging the protective 

 sheath begun at the shoulders too great? 

 We stand amazed at such meanness. 



What again shall we say of this other 

 Beetle, Myodites subdipterus? Her grub 

 establishes itself, I know not how, in the cells 

 of Halictus zebra ^ and battens on the nymph 



1 A wild Bee. Cf. Bramble-divellers and Others, by J. 

 Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mat- 

 tos: chaps, xii. to xiv. — Translator's Note. 

 26s 



