insect to
fasts indefinitely prolonged. Although I have never come across the
Drilus, who is a stranger to my district, I conjecture a method of
attack very similar to that of the Glow-worm. Like our own
Snail-eater, the Algerian insect does not cut its victim into small
pieces: it renders it inert, chloroforms it by means of a few tweaks
which are easily distributed, if the lid but half-opens for a second.
That will do. The besieger thereupon enters and, in perfect quiet,
consumes a prey incapable of the least muscular effort. That is how I
see things by the unaided light of logic.

Let us now return to the Glow-worm. When the Snail is on the ground,
creeping, or even shrunk into his shell, the attack never presents any
difficulty. The shell possesses no lid and leaves the hermit's
fore-part to a great extent exposed. Here, on the edges of the mantle
contracted by the fear of danger, the mollusc is vulnerable and
incapable of defence. But it also frequently happens that the Snail
occupies a raised position, clinging to the tip of a grass-stalk or
perhaps to the smooth surface of a stone. This support serves him as a
temporary lid; it wards off the aggression of any churl who might try
to molest the inhabitant of the cabin, always on the express condition
that no slit show itself anywhere on the protecting circumference. If,
on the other hand, in the frequent case when the shell does not fit
its support quite closely, some point, however tiny, be left
uncovered, this is enough for the subtle tools of the Lampyris, who
just nibbles at the mollusc and at once plunges him into that profound
immobility which favours the tranquil proceedings of the consumer.

These proceedings are marked by extreme prudence. The assailant has to
handle his victim gingerly, without provoking contractions which would
make the Snail let go his support and, at the very least, precipitate
him from the tall stalk whereon he is blissfully slumbering. Now any
game falling to the ground would seem to be so much sheer loss, for
the Glow-worm has no great zeal for hunting-expeditions: he profits by
the discoveries which good luck sends him, without undertaking
assiduous searches. It is essential, therefore, that the equilibrium
of a prize perched on the top of a stalk and only just held in
position by a touch of glue should be disturbed as little as possible
during the onslaught; it is necessary that the assailant should go to
work with infinite cir