oadside, and there remains motionless, in profound
meditation, throughout the scorching summer days. It is in some such
resting-place as this that I have often been privileged to light upon
the Lampyris banqueting on the prey which he had just paralyzed on its
shaky support by his surgical artifices.

But he is familiar with other preserves. He frequents the edges of the
irrigating-ditches, with their cool soil, their varied vegetation, a
favourite haunt of the mollusc. Here, he treats the game on the
ground; and, under these conditions, it is easy for me to rear him at
home and to follow the operator's performance down to the smallest
detail.

I will try to make the reader a witness of the strange sight. I place
a little grass in a wide glass jar. In this I install a few Glow-worms
and a provision of Snails of a suitable size, neither too large nor
too small, chiefly _Helix variabilis_. We must be patient and wait.
Above all, we must keep an assiduous watch, for the desired events
come unexpectedly and do not last long.

Here we are at last. The Glow-worm for a moment investigates the prey,
which, according to its habit, is wholly withdrawn in the shell,
except the edge of the mantle, which projects slightly. Then the
hunter's weapon is drawn, a very simple weapon, but one that cannot be
plainly perceived without the aid of a lens. It consists of two
mandibles bent back powerfully into a hook, very sharp and as thin as
a hair. The microscope reveals the presence of a slender groove
running throughout the length. And that is all.

The insect repeatedly taps the Snail's mantle with its instrument. It
all happens with such gentleness as to suggest kisses rather than
bites. As children, teasing one another, we used to talk of
"tweaksies" to express a slight squeeze of the finger-tips, something
more like a tickling than a serious pinch. Let us use that word. In
conversing with animals, language loses nothing by remaining juvenile.
It is the right way for the simple to understand one another.

The Lampyris doles out his tweaks. He distributes them methodically,
without hurrying, and takes a brief rest after each of them, as though
he wished to ascertain the effect produced. Their number is not great:
half-a-dozen, at most, to subdue the prey and deprive it of all power
of movement. That other pinches are administered later, at the time of
eating, seems very likely, but I cannot say anything for certain,
because the se