This result astonishes me, for I take very good care that the cage is never without provisions. The Snail, the Cockchafer, the Praying Mantis, the Earthworm, the caterpillar and other favourite dishes alternate in my refectory in more than sufficient quantities. My Gold Beetles therefore had not the excuse of hunger in devouring a brother whose damaged armour lent itself to easy attack. Can it be their custom to finish off the wounded and to ransack the stomach of an injured kinsman? Pity is unknown among the insects. At the sight of the desperate struggles of a crippled relation, not one of the same race will stop, not one will try to help him. With carnivorous insects, matters may take an even more tragic turn. Sometimes the passers-by will run up to the invalid. Do they do so in order to assist him? Not at all: they do it to see what he tastes like and, if they find him good, to cure his ills thoroughly by devouring him. It is therefore possible that the Carabus with the damaged wing-cases tempted his comrades by the sight of his partly denuded body. They saw in their helpless brother a prey which it was lawful to dissect. But do they respect one another when there is no previous injury? At first sight, everything would seem to show that their relations are very peaceful. There is never any scuffling between the feasters at their meals, nothing but mouth-to-mouth robberies. Nor are there any quarrels during the long siestas under the cover of the board. Half-buried in the cool earth, my five-and-twenty specimens quietly slumber and digest their food, at no great distance one from the other, each in his little trench. If I take away the shelter, they awake, make off, run hither and thither, constantly meeting without molesting one another. Profound peace therefore prevails and seems likely to last for ever when, on inspecting the cage during the first heats of June, I find a dead Carabus. His limbs are intact; he is very neatly reduced to a mere golden husk; he shows us once more what we saw in the helpless Beetle who was lately devoured; he reminds us of the shell of the eaten Oyster. I examine the remains. But for the huge breach in the abdomen, all is as it should be. So the insect was in good health when the others gutted it. A few days later, yet another Carabus is slain and treated like the others, with all the various pieces of the armour undisturbed. If we lay him on his belly, he seems as though intact; if we lay him on his back, he is hollow, without a scrap of flesh left inside his carapace. A little later I find another empty relic, then another, and yet another, until my menagerie is rapidly diminishing. If this frenzied slaughter continues, I shall soon have nothing left in the vivarium.