I should have preferred a better proportioned assembly. Chance, not choice, had given me that at my disposal. In the early spring I had collected all the Gardeners I could find under the stones of the neighbourhood, without distinguishing the sexes, for they are not easy to recognise merely by external characteristics. Later on I learned by watching them that a slight excess of size was the distinctive sign of the female. My menagerie, so ill-proportioned in the matter of sex, was therefore the result of chance. I do not suppose this preponderance of males exists in natural conditions. On the other hand, one never sees such numerous groups at liberty, in the shelter of the same stone. The Gardener lives an almost solitary life; it is rarely that one finds two or three beneath the same object of shelter. The gathering in my menagerie was thus exceptional, although it did not lead to confusion. There is plenty of room in the glass cage for excursions to a distance and for all their habitual manoeuvres. Those who wish for solitude can obtain it; those who wish for company need not seek it. For the rest, captivity cannot lie heavily on them; that is proved by their frequent feasts, their constant mating. They could not thrive better in the open; perhaps not so well, for food is less abundant under natural conditions. In the matter of well-being the prisoners are in a normal condition, favourable to the maintenance of their usual habits. It is true that encounters of beetle with beetle are more frequent here than in the open. Hence, no doubt, arise more opportunities for the females to persecute the males whom they no longer require; to fall upon them from the rear and eviscerate them. This pursuit of their onetime lovers is aggravated by their confined quarters; but it certainly is not caused thereby, for such customs are not suddenly originated. The mating season over, the female encountering a male in the open must evidently regard him as fair game, and devour him as the termination of the matrimonial rites. I have turned over many stones, but have never chanced upon this spectacle, but what has occurred in my menagerie is sufficient to convince me. What a world these beetles live in, where the matron devours her mate so soon as her fertility delivers her from the need of him! And how lightly the males must be regarded by custom, to be served in this manner! Is this practice of post-matrimonial cannibalism a general custom in the insect world? For the moment, I can recollect only three characteristic examples: those of the Praying Mantis, the Golden Gardener, and the scorpion of Languedoc. An analogous yet less brutal practice--for the victim is defunct before he is eaten--is a characteristic of the Locust family. The female of the white-faced Decticus will eagerly devour the body of her dead mate, as will the Green Grasshopper.