I should have preferred a more evenly divided assembly. Luck, not choice, gave me that which I had at my disposal. I collected in early spring all the Gold Beetles that I could find under the stones around, without distinction of sex, which is not easy to recognize merely by external characteristics. Afterwards, as I reared them in my cages, I learnt that a slight excess in size was the distinctive sign of the females. My menagerie, so unequal in the numerical relation of the sexes, was therefore a fortuitous result. It seems likely that this proportion of males does not exist under natural conditions. On the other hand, such numerous groups are never seen at liberty, sheltered under the same stone. The Gold Beetle leads an almost solitary life; it is rare to find two or three gathered at one spot. The assembly in my menagerie is therefore exceptional, although it does not lead to disorder. There is plenty of room in the glass cage for distant rambles and for all the usual diversions. He who wants to be alone remains alone; he who wants company soon finds it. For that matter, captivity does not seem to trouble them unduly, as is shown by the frequent feasting and their daily repeated mating. They could thrive no better if at liberty in the fields: perhaps they would not thrive so well, for food is not so abundant there as in the cage. As regards comfort, therefore, the prisoners are in a normal condition favouring the preservation of their usual habits. Only, meetings of kinsfolk occur more often here than in the open. This, no doubt, affords the females better opportunities to persecute the males for whom they have no further use, to grab them by the rump and disembowel them. This hunting of the bygone lovers is aggravated but certainly not innovated by the too close vicinity: such customs are never improvised. When the mating is over, a female meeting a male in the open must then treat him as fair game and munch him up in order to close the matrimonial rites. I have turned over many stones but have never chanced upon this spectacle; no matter: what I saw in the cage is enough to convince me. What a world the Gold Beetle lives in, where the matron devours her partner when she no longer needs him to fertilize her ovaries! And how lightly do the laws of creation hold the males, to allow them to be butchered in this way! Are these fits of cannibalism following upon love widely distributed? For the moment I know only three really characteristic examples: those of the Praying Mantis, the Languedocian Scorpion and the Golden Carabus. The horror of the lover converted into prey is also found in the Locustian tribe, though accompanied by less brutality, for the victim devoured is now a dead and not a living insect. The female of the White-faced Decticus [95] is quite willing to nibble a leg of the defunct male. The Green Grasshopper [96] behaves likewise.