The sleepers forthwith awaken, scenting the rich prey defiling close at hand. One of them runs forward; three or four others follow, arousing the whole assembly; those who are buried emerge; the whole band of cut-throats falls upon the passing herd. Then comes an unforgettable sight. The mandibles get to work in all directions; the procession is attacked in the van, in the rear, in the middle; the victims are assailed in the back or the belly at random. The hairy skins are ripped open, their contents escape in a rush of entrails green with the pine-needles that constitute the food; the caterpillars writhe convulsively and lash out with their tails, suddenly coiling and uncoiling, clinging with their feet, dribbling and biting. Those as yet unscathed dig desperately in an attempt to take refuge underground. Not one succeeds. They are hardly half-way down before the Carabus hastens up, pulls them out and rips them open. If the butchery were not occurring in a dumb world, we should have all the frightful hubbub of the Chicago massacres. But it needs the ear of the imagination to hear the shrieks and lamentations of the eviscerated. This ear I possess; and I am seized with remorse for having provoked such sufferings. The Beetles are now rummaging everywhere in the heap of dead and dying, each tugging and tearing at a morsel which he carries off to swallow privately, away from envious eyes. After this mouthful, another is hurriedly cut off the carcase, followed by more still, as long as any dismembered bodies remain. In a few minutes the procession is reduced to a few shreds of still quivering flesh. There were a hundred and fifty caterpillars; the butchers are twenty-five. This makes six victims to each Carabus. If the insect had nothing to do but to kill indefinitely, like the labourers in the meat-factories, and if the staff consisted of a hundred disembowellers, a very modest figure compared with that of the ham-boners, the total number of victims, in a ten hours’ day, would be thirty-six thousand. No Chicago cannery ever achieved such an output. The speed of the assassination is even more remarkable when we consider the difficulties of the attack. The Carabus has nothing like the endless chain which seizes the Pig by one leg, hoists it up and swings it along to the butcher’s knife; he has nothing like the sliding plank which brings the Bullock’s forehead beneath the slaughterer’s mallet; he has to fall upon his prey, overpower it and steer clear of its tusks and claws. Moreover, what he disembowels he eats on the spot. What a massacre it would be if the insect had nothing to do but kill!