or. In vain I turned
over the ground and the prey, but I could only find four of them.

On a path leading to a glen, we noticed some cicindelas. Lucien began
chasing them, but the agility of his enemies soon baffled him.

"How malicious these flies are!" he cried; "I can't succeed in catching
one of them."

"They are not flies, but coleoptera, allied to the Carabus family. Give
me your net."

Lucien was anxious to obtain one of them, and at length was successful.
He was delighted with the beautiful metallic color of their brown
elytra, dotted over with yellow spots; but the insect, after having
bitten him, escaped.

"What jaws they have!" he said, shaking his fingers; "it's a good thing
those creatures are very small. Do cicindelas live in woods?"

"They prefer dry, sandy places, and can run and fly very swiftly. This
insect has an uncommonly voracious appetite; look at this one, which has
just seized an immense fly, and is trying to tear it in pieces."

The capricious flight of a stag-beetle led us to the edge of the ravine;
and, continuing to follow a zigzag path shaded with shrubs, we came out
in front of a hut. On the threshold there was a young woman spinning a
piece of cotton cloth, whom I recognized as one of the dancers of the
night before. The loom which held the weft was fastened at one end to
the trunk of a tree, the other being wound round the waist of the
weaver. Lucien examined it with great curiosity; and when he saw the
weaver change the color of her threads, he understood how the Indian
women covered the bottoms of their petticoats with those extraordinary
patterns which their fancy produces.

Within a short distance of the hut there were some nopal cactus-plants.

"Look at these plants," said I, addressing Lucien; "the sight of them
would probably affect l'Encuerado to tears, for they are principally
cultivated in his native land. The numerous brown spots which you can
see on their stalks are hemipterous insects, commonly called cochineal.
They have no wings, and feed entirely on this cactus, sucking out its
sap with their proboscis. The male only is capable of movement; the
female is doomed to die where she is born. At a certain time these
little insects lay thousands of eggs, and their bodies become covered
with a cottony moss, which is intended as a shelter for their young. The
cochineal is gathered when, to use the Indian expression, it is ripe, by
scraping the plant with a long flexible