94 Insect Life : Its Why and Wherefore 
garden or crossing the paths. Let him 
alone and he is very ordinary, but interfere 
with him or obstruct his path and he 
becomes very extraordinary in his attitude. 
Up goes the head, the formidable jaws are 
opened wide and the tail is raised and 
thrown back scorpion fashion, protruding 
some small vesicles which emit a fluid 
capable of giving off a very objectionable 
odour. Being thus armed fore and aft this 
creature is capable of doing grievous bodily 
harm to other beetles or insects which 
it meets. If you pick up a specimen or 
bar its progress with your finger, the 
attempts which it makes to bite you are 
ludicrous. Both the smallness of its jaw 
and the violence of its temper seem to 
render its attempts futile. If one cocktail 
is placed in the path of another a fight 
will often ensue, and it is generally “ to the 
death.” The egg laid by these beetles is 
credited with being the largest laid by any 
British insect, measuring nearly 2 
millimetres long by 13 millimetres wide. 
Those formidable jaws which we have 
pictured as hurling to death and destruction 
its enemies are also extremely useful. The 
