of that of the Cantharides; it is calmer
and as it were rhythmical. The abdomen moreover remains motionless and
seems unskilled in those slaps, as of a washerwoman's bat, which the
amorous denizen of the ash-tree so vigorously distributes with his
belly.

While the front half of the body swings up and down, the fore-legs
execute magnetic passes on either side of the tight-clasped female,
moving with a sort of twirl, so rapidly that the eye can hardly follow
them. The female appears insensible to this flagellatory twirl. She
innocently curls her antennae. The rejected suitor leaves her and
moves on to another. His dizzy, twirling passes, his protestations are
everywhere refused. The moment has not yet arrived, or rather the spot
is not propitious. Captivity appears to weigh upon the future mothers.
Before listening to their wooers they must have the open air, the
sudden joyful flight from cluster to cluster on the sunlit slope, all
gold with everlastings. Apart from the idyll of the twirling passes, a
mitigated form of the Cantharides' blows, the Cerocoma refused to
yield before my eyes to the last act of the bridal.

Among males the same oscillations of the body and the same lateral
flagellations are frequently practised. While the upper one makes a
tremendous to-do and whirls his legs, the one under him keeps quiet.
Sometimes a third scatterbrain comes on the scene, sometimes even a
fourth, and mounts upon the heap of his predecessors. The uppermost
bobs up and down and makes swift rowing-strokes with his fore-legs;
the others remain motionless. Thus are the sorrows of the rejected
beguiled for a moment.

The Zonites, a rude clan, grazing on the heads of the prickly eryngo,
despise all tender preliminaries. A few rapid vibrations of the
antennae on the males' part; and that is all. The declaration could
not be briefer. The pairing, with the creatures placed end to end,
lasts nearly an hour.

The Mylabres also must be very expeditious in their preliminaries, so
much so that my cages, which were kept well-stocked for two summers,
provided me with numerous batches of eggs without giving me a single
opportunity of catching the males in the least bit of a flirtation.
Let us therefore consider the egg-laying.

This takes place in August for our two species of Mylabres. In the
vegetable mould which does duty as a floor to the wire-gauze dome, the
mother digs a pit four-fifths of an inch deep and as wide as her body.
T