The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



jects the attitude of death is of very variable 

 duration, governed as it is by a host of un- 

 suspected circumstances. Let us take ad- 

 vantage of favourable opportunities, which 

 are fairly frequent. I subject the Cloudy 

 Buprestis to the different tests undergone by 

 the Giant Scarites. The results are the 

 same. When you have seen the first, you 

 have seen the second. There is no need to 

 linger over them. 



I will only mention the promptness with 

 which the Buprestis, lying motionless in the 

 shade, recovers his activity when I carry him 

 away from my table into the broad sunlight 

 of the window. After a few seconds of this 

 bath of heat and light, the insect half-opens 

 his wing-cases, using them as levers, and 

 turns over, ready to take flight if my hand 

 did not instantly snap him up. He is a 

 passionate lover of the light, a devotee of the 

 sun, intoxicating himself in its rays upon the 

 bark of his blackthorn-trees on the hottest 

 afternoons. 



This love of tropical temperature suggests 

 the following question: what would happen 

 if I were to chill the creature in its immobile 

 posture? I foresee a more prolonged in- 

 ertia. The chill, of course, must not be 

 great, for it would be followed by the leth- 



