■ 258 
THE DAMASTER. 
downward gaze encountered a grotesque Coleo- 
qiteron in a suit of black, stalking slowly and 
deliberately among .tlie drift-wood at my feet, 
stepping cautiously and delicately over the “ spilli- 
can twigs, like a Catholic priest in a crowded 
thoroughfare. At once I knew my coleopterous 
acquaintance to be Damaster, so I carefully 
lifted my unresisting sable friend from his native 
soil, and after giving him a good long stare, I 
deposited him in a bottle. From his name and 
appearance I judged him to be cousin to Flaps, 
and I turned over the rock-weed for his brothers 
and other relations, but though Helops was there, 
Damaster was not. Puzzled, but not baffled, I 
conceived his tastes might be mme particular, so I 
ascended the steep green sides of the island and 
cast about for rotten trees, nor was I long in dis- 
covering a very promising stump, nicely decayed, 
and full of holes enough to captivate the heart of 
any beetle. Being, however, fatigued with my 
scansorial efforts, I sat down before the citadel of 
the Damaster, and assisted my deliberations by 
