IN FEA THERS AND FUR. 217 
To begin with the grub — since that is the beginning of his 
life ! The Stag Beetle Grub is a fat white worm, with six legs, to 
be sure, but so feeble and weak that it is said he cannot get about 
on them at all. He lives in trees, and eats the wood which he bites 
off with his strong teeth. He prefers the oak tree, but will accept 
a home in a willow, though some naturalists say that he never 
acquires so great a size when living in the willow. 
In this snug house he lives two or three years, till he has got 
his growth, for this family — the insect family, I mean — never 
grows except in its grub state. During all this time he has been 
throwing off skin after skin, as he got too big for the old one, till 
he has attained his full size, when he stops eating, and changes 
into a hard cased bundle — like the picture. There he neither eats 
nor moves, but lies apparently dead, while the strange change 
goes on from a fat unwieldy worm, to a lively flying Beetle. 
When everything is ready, the hard skin of the pupa splits 
open, and out comes the perfect Beetle — wings, horns, legs and all 
— ready to run and fly and eat, and live his little life. He gets his 
name of Stag Beetle, from the shape of his horns — or, to speak 
more properly, the shape of his jaws — which are somewhat like 
the horns of a stag. He is sometimes called a Hornbug. He is 
often three inches long, and a furious looking fellow he is, too. If 
you attempt to catch him you will find him as fierce as he looks, 
for those terrible jaws of his are as strong as they are large, and 
you will be sure to be badly bitten. Even after the fierce little 
fellow's head is cut off, the jaws will bite of themselves. 
Madame Stag Beetle, too, meek as she looks, is a desperate 
biter, even worse than her husband. Her jaws, though short, are 
very sharp and strong, and she thinks nothing of making them 
meet in your finger. One would suppose that such a pugnacious 
family must live on their neighbors, they have such convenient 
weapons with which to kill them. But you can't always judge by 
appearances, you know. The Stag Beetle family live on the juices 
of twigs and fruit, and their sharp jaws are used to crush the twig 
to get their food. If you succeed in catching one and wish to 
keep it alive, you can feed it on moistened sugar, which it laps or 
sweeps up with a sort of brush which it has in its mouth. 
Some observers say that it does now and then attack insects, 
though whether to drive them away or to eat them, does not 
appear. They have been seen coming down from a tree carrying a 
