w-like mandibles of extraordinary vigour. None of our insects
equals him in strength of jaw, if we except the Stag-beetle, who is
far better armed, or rather decorated, for the antlered mandibles of
the inmate of the oak are ornaments of the male's attire, not a
panoply of battle.

The brutal Carabid, the eviscerator of the Pimeliae, knows how strong
he is. If I tease him a little on the table, he at once adopts a
posture of defence. Well braced upon his short legs, especially the
fore-legs, which are toothed like rakes, he dislocates himself in two,
so to speak, thanks to the groove that divides him behind the
corselet; he proudly raises the fore-part of the body, his wide,
heart-shaped thorax and massive head, opening his threatening pincers
to their full extent. He is now an awesome sight. More: he has the
audacity to rush at the finger which has touched him. Here of a surety
is one not easily intimidated. I look twice before I handle him.

I lodge my strangers partly under a wire-gauze cover and partly in
glass jars, all supplied with a layer of sand. Each of them without
delay digs himself a burrow. The insect bends his head a long way down
and, with the points of his mandibles, brought together to form a
pick-axe, he hews, digs and excavates with a will. The fore-legs,
spread out and armed with hooks, gather the dust and rubbish into a
load which is thrust backwards. In this way, a mound rises on the
threshold of the burrow. The dwelling grows deeper quickly and by a
gentle slope reaches the bottom of the jar.

Checked in the downward direction, the Scarites now digs against the
glass wall and continues his work horizontally until he has obtained a
length of nearly twelve inches in all.

This arrangement of the gallery, almost the whole of which runs just
under the glass, is very useful to me, enabling me to follow the
insect in the privacy of its home. If I wish to observe its
underground operations, all that I need do is to remove the opaque
sheath which I have been careful to put over the jar, in order to
spare the creature the annoyance of the light.

When the house is deemed to be long enough, the Scarites returns to
the entrance, which he works more carefully than the rest. He makes a
funnel of it, a pit with shifting, sloping sides. It is the Ant-lion's
crater on a larger scale and constructed in a more rustic fashion.
This mouth is continued by an inclined plane, kept free of all
rubbish. At the foot