The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



While the front half of the body swings 

 up and down, the fore-legs execute magnetic 

 passes on either side of the tight-clasped 

 female, moving with a sort of twirl, so 

 rapidly that the eye can hardly follow them. 

 The female appears insensible to this flagel- 

 latory twirl. She innocently curls her an- 

 tennas. The rejected suitor leaves her and 

 moves on to another. His dizzy, twirling 

 passes, his protestations are everywhere re- 

 fused. The moment has not yet arrived, or 

 rather the spot is not propitious. Captivity 

 appears to weigh upon the future mothers. 

 Before listening to their wooers they must 

 have the open air, the sudden joyful flight 

 from cluster to cluster on the sunlit slope, 

 all gold with everlastings. Apart from the 

 idyll of the twirling passes, a mitigated form 

 of the Cantharides' blows, the Cerocoma re- 

 fused to yield before my eyes to the last act 

 of the bridal. 



Among males the same oscillations of the 

 body and the same lateral flagellations are 

 frequently practised. While the upper one 

 makes a tremendous to-do and whirls his legs, 

 the one under him keeps quiet. Sometimes a 

 third scatterbrain comes on the scene, some- 

 times even a fourth, and mounts upon the 

 heap of his predecessors. The uppermost 

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