Is this frenzy for killing among creatures of the same species due to cannibalism enforced by starvation? I really do not think so. When well-fed to begin with, rich, moreover, in the victuals which I lavish upon them, these miscreants are as prone as ever to butcher their kith and kin. In vain I overwhelm them with choice morsels: succulent sausages in the shape of young Anoxia-larvæ; [26] Vitrinæ, [27] tiny molluscs which I give them half-crushed, to spare the banqueters the trouble of extracting them from the shell. As soon as they are confronted, the two bandits, which have just been feasting on a prey as bulky as themselves, stand up, challenging each other and snapping at each other until one of the two is dead. Then follows the odious meal. To eat the murdered kinsman is, it seems, the usual thing. The Mantis [28] who, in captivity, preys upon her mates has the madness of the rutting beast as her excuse. The fierce, jealous creature can find no better way of getting rid of her rivals than to eat them, provided she be the stronger. This procreative depravity is found much higher in the scale. The Cat and the Rabbit notably are prone to devour the young family which might stand in the way of their unslaked passions. In my glass jars and under the flat stones in the fields the Devil’s Coach-horse has no such excuse. Thanks to its larval state, it is utterly indifferent to the disorders attendant on the pairing. Those of its fellows which it encounters are not its amorous rivals. And yet without more ado they seize and slay one another. A fight to the death decides which is to be the consumed and which the consumer. In our language we have the word anthropophagi to denote the horrible eating of man by man; we have nothing to express a similar act in animals of the same species. A proverbial phrase would even seem to say that such a term is uncalled for, except where man is concerned, that baffling admixture of nobility and baseness. Wolf does not eat Wolf, says the wisdom of the nations. Well, here we have the larva of the Stinking Staphylinus giving the lie to the proverb. What a morality. In this connection, I should have wished to consult the Big-jawed Staphylinus when she came to visit my highly-seasoned Moles, my putrefying Snakes. But she always refused to divulge her secrets, withdrawing from the charnel-pit once she had filled her maw. CHAPTER III THE BEADED TROX