cumspection and without producing pain, lest any
muscular reaction should provoke a fall and endanger the prize. As we
see, sudden and profound anaesthesia is an excellent means of enabling
the Lampyris to attain his object, which is to consume his prey in
perfect quiet.

What is his manner of consuming it? Does he really eat, that is to
say, does he divide his food piecemeal, does he carve it into minute
particles, which are afterwards ground by a chewing-apparatus? I think
not. I never see a trace of solid nourishment on my captives' mouths.
The Glow-worm does not eat in the strict sense of the word: he drinks
his fill; he feeds on a thin gruel into which he transforms his prey
by a method recalling that of the maggot. Like the flesh-eating grub
of the Fly, he too is able to digest before consuming; he liquefies
his prey before feeding on it.

This is how things happen: a Snail has been rendered insensible by the
Glow-worm. The operator is nearly always alone, even when the prize is
a large one, like the Common Snail, _Helix aspersa_. Soon a number of
guests hasten up--two, three or more--and, without any quarrel with
real proprietor, all alike fall to. Let us leave them to themselves
for a couple of days and then turn the shell, with the opening
downwards. The contents flow out as easily as would soup from an
overturned saucepan. When the sated diners retire from this gruel,
only insignificant leavings remain.

The matter is obvious: by repeated tiny bites, similar to the tweaks
which we saw distributed at the outset, the flesh of the mollusc is
converted into a gruel on which the various banqueters nourish
themselves without distinction, each working at the broth by means of
some special pepsine and each taking his own mouthfuls of it. In
consequence of this method, which first converts the food into a
liquid, the Glow-worm's mouth must be very feebly armed apart from the
two fangs which sting the patient and inject the anaesthetic poison
and, at the same time, no doubt, the serum capable of turning the
solid flesh into fluid. These two tiny implements, which can just be
examined through the lens, must, it seems, have some other object.
They are hollow and in this resemble those of the Ant-lion, which
sucks and drains its capture without having to divide it; but there is
this great difference, that the Ant-lion leaves copious remnants,
which are afterwards flung outside the funnel-shaped trap dug in the
sand, wh