In winter, when I raise the stones beside the foot-paths, I often come across the larva of the Stinking Staphylinus (S. olens, Müll.), or Devil’s Coach-horse. The ugly animal, which is not very different in shape from the adult, measures about an inch in length. The head and thorax are a fine, glossy black; the abdomen is brown and bristles with sparse hairs. The cranium is flat; the mandibles are black and very sharp, opening in a ferocious crescent whose width is more than twice the diameter of the head. The mere sight of these curved daggers enables us to guess the highwayman’s habits. The creature’s most singular implement is the end of the intestine, which is covered with a horny substance prolonged into a stiff tube standing at right angles to the axis of the body. This member is an instrument of locomotion, an anal crutch. In walking, the animal presses the tip of this crutch to the ground and thrusts backwards as with a lever, while the legs struggle forward. Doré, [25] the famous illustrator of extravagant notions, conceived a similar system. He shows us somewhere a legless cripple seated in a bowl supported by a pivot and working himself along on his hands. The artist’s grotesque imagination might well have been inspired by the grotesque appearance of the insect. Even among its own kind, the crutched insect is a bad neighbour. Very rarely do I find two larvæ under the same stone; and, when this happens, one of the two is always in a pitiful state: the other is devouring it as if it were its ordinary game. Let us watch this conflict of two cannibals, each thirsting for the other’s blood. In the arena furnished by a tumbler containing some moist sand, I place two larvæ of equal strength. The moment they face each other, they suddenly rear up, bending their bodies backwards, with the six legs in the air, hooks of the mandibles wide open and the anal crutch firmly fixed. They look magnificently audacious in this posture of attack and defence. This above all is the best moment for recognizing the great advantage of the pivot at the tail. Though in danger of being disembowelled by its adversary, the larva has no other support than the tip of the abdomen and the terminal tube. The six legs play no part in sustaining it; they wave in the air, all six free and ready to clasp the enemy. The two adversaries are standing face to face. Which of the two will eat the other? Chance decides. Mutual threats are followed by a hand-to-hand struggle. The fight does not last long. Favoured by the hazards of the fray, or perhaps timing its blows more accurately, one seizes the other by the scruff of the neck. It is done: any resistance on the part of the vanquished is impossible; blood flows and murder has been committed. When all movement has ceased, the victor devours the slain, leaving only the unpleasantly hard skin.