Gold Beetles: Their Nuptial Habits 



licitude, as I foresee from the lack of indus- 

 try in the mother. 



I wait in vain : there is no laying. Mean- 

 while the cool nights of October arrive. 

 Four females perish, this time by a natural 

 death. 



The survivor takes no notice of them. 

 She refuses them burial in her stomach, a 

 burial at one time accorded to the males, 

 dissected alive. She cowers as deep down 

 in the ground as the scanty earth of the cage 

 permits. In November, when Mont Ven- 

 toux is white with the first snows, she grows 

 torpid in her hiding-place. Let us hence- 

 forth leave her in peace. She will live 

 through the winter, everything seems to tell 

 us, and produce her eggs next spring. 



31S 



