OPEN MURDERERS. 179 



save their ruling instinct as laborious as the hardest-driven 

 son of Afric. 



Such are a few, and a few only, of the groups in activity, 

 the labours in progress, within and about the oak ; but under 

 our figure of a city, we have spoken of various deeds of dark- 

 ness as being also in constant committal within its precincts. 

 Where, amongst these, do the weak escape the ravages of the 

 strong ? and, amongst the tribes of an oak, numerous are the 

 helpless which are for ever falling a prey to the powerful. 

 Carnivorous ground beetles are climbing, by day and night, up 

 the rugged sides of the tree, to devour the helpless caterpillars 

 which abound thereon. Of these destroyers, some are dark 

 and grim of aspect (such as the Devil's Coach-horse), 1 but 

 there are some of them beautiful as ferocious : one a very 

 demon of destructiveness, with channelled armour, resplendent 

 in green and gold clad, in the phrase of the poet, even as 



"A mailed angel on a battle day." 



But an angel verily of darkness, for ever engaged in attack 

 and slaughter of the defenceless and unarmed. 



This brilliant destroyer is the Calosoma Sycophanta, a beetle 

 rarely seen in England ; but a species smaller and darker, the 

 Calosoma Inquisitor an insect also of no little beauty is not 

 at all uncommon, during the present month, on the oak and 

 hawthorn. 



In no other locality has the extensive tribe of Parasitic or 

 Ichneumon Flies more fertile field for its insidious practices, 

 than amidst the numerous tribes of an oak. 



A corpulent caterpillar is stuffing his furred or velvet 

 doublet with the juicy pulp of a young and tender oak-leaf. 

 An Ichneumon Fly, poised in air above him, her iridescent 



1 Rove Beetle (Staphylinus). 



