[Illustration: 3.--THE DEVIL'S COACH-HORSE SAMPLING A CATERPILLAR.] If you disturb the Coach-horse, however, while he is engaged in eating his quiet meal, or even when he is walking at leisure along a country road, he puts himself at once into his "terrifying" attitude, and imitates the scorpion. No. 4 exhibits him in this military character, cocking up his tail and pretending he can sting--which is only his brag: he just does it to frighten you. But the attitude is so exactly like that of the scorpion, that it almost always produces an immediate effect: hardly anybody likes to molest a Devil's Coach-horse. If you put down your hand to touch him, and he rears in response, ten to one you will withdraw it in alarm at sight of him. In England these beetles often enough find their way into larders or cellars, seeking whom or what they may devour; and when the servants light upon them, they almost invariably decline to touch them: there is a general opinion about that the ugly and threatening black beasts are uncanny and poisonous, or else why should they turn up their tails at you in such an insulting fashion? [Illustration: 4.--THE DEVIL'S COACH-HORSE PRETENDS TO BE A SCORPION.] "But," you may object, "there are no scorpions in England: how then can the Devil's Coach-horse be benefited by imitating an animal which he has never seen, and of whose very existence he has not been able to read in pretty picture books?" Your objection has some force--though not so much as you imagine. It is quite true that there are no scorpions in England; but then, there are Devil's Coach-horses in many other countries, and the habit of tail-cocking need not necessarily have been acquired in these islands of Britain. That is not all, however: it suffices the beetle if the tactics it adopts happen to frighten and repel its enemies, no matter why. Now, in the first place, many of our migratory birds go in winter to Southern Europe and Africa--especially the insect-eaters, which can find no food in frozen weather. The hard-billed seed-eaters and fruit-eaters remain with us, but the soft-billed kinds retire to warmer climates, where food is plentiful. Of course, however, it is just these insect-eating birds that the Devil's Coach-horse has most to fear from. The birds must be quite familiar with the habits and manners of scorpions in their southern homes; and they are not likely to inquire closely whether the dangerous beast they know on the Mediterranean has, or has not been scheduled in Britain. We all of us dislike and distrust any insect that resembles a bee or wasp, and that buzzes or hums in a hostile manner: we give all such creatures a wide berth, wherever found, on the bare off-chance that they may turn out to be venomous--be hornets or so forth. Just in the same way, a bird, when it sees an unknown black beastie cock up its tail and assume a threatening attitude, is not likely to inquire too curiously whether or