The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



mouldy drugs; certain Beetles, such as the 

 Brachini, 1 understand explosives and singe 

 the aggressor's whiskers with a volley of 

 musketry. 



Distillers of corrosives, gunners throwing 

 lyddite, bombers employing dynamite : what 

 can all these violent creatures, so well 

 equipped for battle, do beyond committing 

 slaughter? Nothing. We find no art, no 

 industry, not even in the larva, which pract- 

 ices the adult's trade and meditates its 

 crimes while wandering under the stones. 

 Nevertheless it is to one of these dull-witted 

 warriors that I am deliberately proposing 

 to apply to-day, prompted by the wish to 

 solve a certain question. Let me tell you 

 what it is. 



You have surprised this or that insect, 

 motionless on a bough, blissfully basking in 

 the sun. Your hand is raised, open, ready 

 to descend on it and seize it. Hardly have 

 you made the movement when the insect 

 drops to the ground. It is a wearer of 

 armoured wing^ases, slow to disengage the 

 wings from their horny sheath, or perhaps 

 an incomplete form, with no wing-surfaces. 



1 Or Bombardier Beetles. When disturbed, they eject 

 a fluid which volatilizes, on contact with the air, with a 

 slight report. Translator's Note. 



3 S 8 



