172 A TOUU BOUND MY GARDEN. 



out leaving its horns out. There it shuts itself up in a ball, 

 made of grains of earth stuck upon a web or cocoon of silk, 

 the inside of which is whiter and finer than the most beau- 

 tiful satin. It soon becomes a sort of dragon-fly, which cuts 

 with its teeth the cocoon which incloses it. This fly, which has 

 at first the appearance of those dragon-flies that we have met 

 with, and whose larva lives in,the mud of water, difiers from 

 them in several points. In the first place, it has not the 

 same degree of magnificence in its dress; it is grey, with 

 a little yeUow border on each wing : besides, its broader wings 

 are also longer than those of the dragon-flies of the meadows, 

 and, when at rest, are placed over its body, which they 

 entirely cover, in the form of a roof, whilst the other keeps 

 them spread.* I only speak of the differences which present 

 themselves to the eye of an ignorant person ; the learned see 

 many others that exist, and more stiU that do not exist. 



There is another insect which, as well as the ant-lion, lays 

 traps in the sand, in which to catch the game upon which it 

 lives ; that is the tiger-beetle, a pretty beetle, dressed in green 

 velvet, spotted with white, which, when touched, emits the 

 smell both of the rose and of musk. Its flight is a leap of six 

 feet, for which it makes use of its wings. Before its trans- 

 formation, in its first form, the tiger-beetle lives likewise upon 

 insects, but it is not constructed so as to enable it to pursue 

 them : it is therefore obliged to catch in traps a prey which, 

 at a later period, it will know how to seize, by pouncing upon 

 it like a carnivorous bird. It digs, in a sandy soil, a narrow 

 hole, sometimes a foot deep : it reascends to the earth by the 

 same means that chimney-sweepers employ. When there, it 

 bends its head, and makes a bridge of it, upon which the 

 abyss of two lines in width which it has dug may be passed. 

 When an insect passes over this bridge, the bridge becomes 

 a trap, sinks beneath its steps, and precipitates it to the 

 bottom of the hole, where it is devoured. 



Many poets and philosophers have reproached man severely 

 with being the only animal that is the enemy of its own 

 species. Poets and philosophers are wrong : all animals de- 

 stroy each other, and eat each other. 



I can with more justice reproach man on another account, 



* See left-hana figure of the cat cq p. 138. 



