Where shall I find that modest mouthful, at once tender and savoury? Chance provides me with it. In May I am visited by a Beetle with soft wing-cases, Omophlus lepturoides, a finger’s-breadth long. He arrived suddenly in the enclosure in swarms. Around an ilex all yellow with catkins there is a whirling cloud of Beetles, flying, settling, sipping sweets and frantically attending to their love-affairs. This life of revelry lasts a fortnight: then they all disappear in caravans going one knows not whither. On behalf of my boarders, we will levy on these nomads, who look to me as though they would be suitable. I was right in my assumption. After a long, a very long wait, I see the Scorpion make a meal. Here he comes, stealthily advancing towards the insect motionless on the ground. He does not hunt his quarry: he gathers it in. There is neither hurry nor contest, no movement of the tail, no use of the poisoned weapon. The Scorpion placidly grabs the morsel with his two-fingered hands; the pincers bend back, carry it to the mouth and then both hold it until it is all consumed. The insect that is being eaten, full of life, struggles between the mandibles, to the resentment of the eater, who likes to nibble quietly. Then the dart bends down before the mouth; very gently it pricks the insect once or twice and paralyses it. The mastication is resumed and the sting continues to tap, as though the consumer were swallowing the morsel a forkful at a time. At last the insect, patiently chewed and chewed again for hours on end, has become a dry pellet which the stomach would refuse; but this residue has entered the gullet so far that the sated Scorpion cannot always reject it directly. The intervention of the pincers is required to extricate it. One of them seizes the pill with the finger-tips, daintily extracts it from the throat and drops it to the ground. The meal is finished: it will not be repeated for a long time to come. A great improvement on the wire-gauze covers, the large glazed cage, full of animation in the evening twilight, provides me with abundant information touching this strange frugality. In April and May, essentially the season of festive assemblies and banquets, I provision the place lavishly with game. At this time my lilac-walk abounds with Cabbage Butterflies and Swallowtails. Caught in the net, their wings partly amputated, a dozen of these Butterflies are let loose in the establishment, whence their maimed condition will prevent them from escaping.