THE LITTLE ‘FIGHTER FROM 
FIGHTERSVILLE.’ 
H® was black, he was long, he was ugly— 
ugly as original sin; ugly, as one would 
have expected him to be, knowing his name to 
be what it was. His jaws were large, curved 
inwards, like pointed, curved shears, and they 
worked horizontally. His eyes were horrible, 
and without expression at all—like glazed 
glass—and his wings were folded on his back 
beneath a black armour-shield. 
He raced over the garden at an enormous 
pace, darting this way and that over the rough 
ground, hunting, it seemed, for something 
which he couldn’t find. Then suddenly he 
was still, still as a stone, his six legs braced, 
his jaws open and ready, and the back portion 
of his body cocked straight up in the air on 
end, like some uncouth tail enormously out of 
proportion. 
Then one saw that he was a beetle—strictly 
speaking, a rove-beetle; but the country-folk 
have called him the ‘ devil’s coach-horse,’ and 
the name has stuck. 
Something was in front of him. That was 
why he had stopped dead. He did not know 
for an instant or two what it was. That was 
