The Glow- Worm and Other Beetles 



plays no part in this slaughter. What we see 

 is an aberration due to exhaustion, the morbid 

 fury of a life on the point of extinction. As 

 is generally the case, work bestows a peace- 

 able disposition on the grave-digger, while 

 inaction inspires him with perverted tastes. 

 Having nothing left to do, he breaks his 

 kinsman's limbs and eats him up, heedless of 

 being maimed or eaten himself. It is the 

 final deliverance of verminous old age. 



This murderous frenzy, breaking out late 

 in life, is not peculiar to the Necrophorus. I 

 have described elsewhere the perversity of 

 the Osmia, so placid in the beginning. Feel- 

 ing her ovaries exhausted, she smashes her 

 neighbours' cells and even her own; she scat- 

 ters the dusty honey, rips open the egg, eats 

 it. The Mantis devours the lovers who have 

 played their parts ; the mother Decticus will- 

 ingly nibbles a thigh of her decrepit hus- 

 band; the merry Crickets, once the eggs are 

 laid in the ground, indulge in tragic domes- 

 tic quarrels and with not the least compunc- 

 tion slash open one another's bellies. When 

 the cares of the family are finished, the joys 

 of life are finished likewise. The insect then 

 sometimes becomes depraved; and its dis- 

 ordered mechanism ends in aberrations. 



The larva has nothing striking to show in 

 316 



