. With their mandibles, those stout
pincers, they lay hold of it through the froth; they tug at it, tear
off a shred and retire to a distance to swallow it at their ease.

Meanwhile the legs, streaming with slime, pick up grains of sand and
become covered with heavy gaiters, which are extremely cumbersome but
to which the Beetle pays no attention. Heavy with mire, he staggers
back to his prey and cuts off another morsel. He will think of
polishing his boots presently. Others do not stir, but gorge
themselves on the spot, with the whole fore-part of their body
immersed in the froth. The feast lasts for hours on end. The guests do
not leave the joint until the distended belly lifts the roof of the
wing-cases and uncovers the nudities of the stern.

Fonder of shady nooks, the Procrustes form a separate company. They
drag the Snail into their lair, under the shelter of a potsherd, and
there, peacefully and in common, dismember the mollusc. They love the
Slug, as easier to cut up than the Snail, who is defended by his
shell; they regard the Testacella,[1] who bears a chalky shell, shaped
like a Phrygian cap, right at the hinder end of her foot, as a
delicious tit-bit. The game has firmer flesh and is less nauseously
slimy.

[Footnote 1: Or Shell-bearing Slug, found along the shores of the
Mediterranean.--_Translator's Note_.]

To feast gluttonously on a Snail whom I myself have rendered
defenseless by breaking her shell is nothing for a warrior to boast
about; but we shall soon see the Carabus display his daring. I offer a
Pine-chafer, in the pink of strength, to the Golden Beetle, whose
appetite has been whetted by a few days' fasting. The victim is a
colossus beside the Golden Carabus; an Ox facing a Wolf.

The beast of prey prowls round the peaceful creature and selects its
moment. It rushes forward, recoils, hesitates and returns to the
charge. And lo, the giant is overthrown! Incontinently the other
devours him, ransacking his belly. If this had happened in a higher
order of the animal world, it would make one's flesh creep to watch
the Carabus half immersed in the big Cockchafer and rooting out his
entrails.

I test the eviscerator with a more difficult quarry. This time the
victim is _Oryctes nasicornis_, the powerful Rhinoceros Beetle, an
invincible giant, one would think, under the shelter of his armour.
But the hunter knows the weak point of the horn-clad prey, the fine
skin protected by the wing-cases. By