SEEKING A MATE 79 



humming, and turning by a succession of jerks all 

 round, pausing after each turn, until he has faced all 

 points of the compass. 



This failing, he darts away and circles widely round, 

 then returning to the central point suspends himself as 

 before. After spending several minutes in this manner, 

 he once more resumes his wanderings. Several males 

 are sometimes attracted to the same spot, but they 

 pass and repass without noticing one another. You 

 will see as many as three or four or half-a-dozen 

 majestically moving up and down at a hedge side or 

 in a narrow path in a hazel copse, each beetle turning 

 when he gets to the end and marching back again; 

 and altogether their measured, stately, and noisy move- 

 ments are a fine spectacle. 



A slight wind makes a great difference to him : even 

 a current of air so faint as not to be felt on the face 

 will reveal to him the exact distant spot in which the 

 doe is lurking. The following incident will serve to 

 show how perfect and almost infallible the sense and 

 its correlated instinct are, and at the same time what 

 a clumsy, blundering creature this beetle is. 



Hearing a buzzing noise in a large unkept hedge, I 

 went to the spot and found a stag trying to extricate 

 himself from some soft fern fronds growing among the 

 brambles in which he had got entangled. In the end 

 he succeeded, and, finally gaining a point where there 

 was nothing to obstruct his flight, he launched himself 

 on the air and flew straight away to a distance of fifty 



