ven in general appearance. He has six short legs,
which he well knows how to use; he is a gad-about, a trot-about. In
the adult state, the male is correctly garbed in wing-cases, like the
true Beetle that he is. The female is an ill-favoured thing who knows
naught of the delights of flying: all her life long, she retains the
larval shape, which, for the rest, is similar to that of the male, who
himself is imperfect so long as he has not achieved the maturity that
comes with pairing-time. Even in this initial stage, the word "worm"
is out of place. We French have the expression "Naked as a worm," to
point to the lack of any defensive covering. Now the Lampyris is
clothed, that is to say, he wears an epidermis of some consistency;
moreover, he is rather richly coloured: his body is dark brown all
over, set off with pale pink on the thorax, especially on the lower
surface. Finally, each segment is decked at the hinder edge with two
spots of a fairly bright red. A costume like this was never worn by a
worm.

Let us leave this ill-chosen denomination and ask ourselves what the
Lampyris feeds upon. That master of the art of gastronomy,
Brillat-Savarin,[1] said:

"Show me what you eat and I will tell you what you are."

[Footnote 1: Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), author of _La
Psychologie du gout_.--_Translator's Note_.]

A similar question should be addressed, by way of a preliminary, to
every insect whose habits we propose to study, for, from the least to
the greatest in the zoological progression, the stomach sways the
world; the data supplied by food are the chief of all the documents of
life. Well, in spite of his innocent appearance, the Lampyris is an
eater of flesh, a hunter of game; and he follows his calling with rare
villainy. His regular prey is the Snail.

This detail has long been known to entomologists. What is not so
well-known, what is not known at all yet, to judge by what I have
read, is the curious method of attack, of which I have seen no other
instance anywhere.

Before he begins to feast, the Glow-worm administers an anaesthetic:
he chloroforms his victim, rivalling in the process the wonders of our
modern surgery, which renders the patient insensible before operating
on him. The usual game is a small Snail hardly the size of a cherry,
such as, for instance, _Helix variabilis_, DRAP., who, in the hot
weather, collects in clusters on the stiff stubble and on other long,
dry stalks, by the r