r defenceless comrade a permissible
subject for dissection. But do they respect one another when there is no
previous wound? At first there was every appearance that their relations
were perfectly pacific. During their sanguinary meals there is never a
scuffle between the feasters; nothing but mere mouth-to-mouth thefts.
There are no quarrels during the long siestas in the shelter of the
board. Half buried in the cool earth, my twenty-five subjects slumber
and digest their food in peace; they lie sociably near one another, each
in his little trench. If I raise the plank they awake and are off,
running hither and thither, constantly encountering one another without
hostilities.

The profoundest peace is reigning, and to all appearances will last for
ever, when in the early days of June I find a dead Gardener. Its limbs
are intact; it is reduced to the condition of a mere golden husk; like
the defenceless beetle I have already spoken of, it is as empty as an
oyster-shell. Let us examine the remains. All is intact, save the huge
breach in the abdomen. So the insect was sound and unhurt when the
others attacked it.

A few days pass, and another Gardener is killed and dealt with as
before, with no disorder in the component pieces of its armour. Let us
place the dead insect on its belly; it is to all appearances untouched.
Place it on its back; it is hollow, and has no trace of flesh left
beneath its carapace. A little later, and I find another empty relic;
then another, and yet another, until the population of my menagerie is
rapidly shrinking. If this insensate massacre continues I shall soon
find my cage depopulated.

Are my beetles hoary with age? Do they die a natural death, and do the
survivors then clean out the bodies? Or is the population being reduced
at the expense of sound and healthy insects? It is not easy to elucidate
the matter, since the atrocities are commonly perpetrated in the night.
But, finally, with vigilance, on two occasions, I surprise the beetles
at their work in the light of day.

Towards the middle of June a female attacks a male before my eyes. The
male is recognisable by his slightly smaller size. The operation
commences. Raising the ends of the wing-covers, the assailant seizes her
victim by the extremity of the abdomen, from the dorsal side. She pulls
at him furiously, eagerly munching with her mandibles. The victim, who
is in the prime of life, does not defend himself, nor turn upon his