The professor inserted his two fingers in the opening, and began feeling about. Suddenly a queer look came over his face, and he uttered an exclamation.
“Did you get the beetle?” asked Bob.
“Er—yes, I—I think so,” was the hesitating answer. “Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the beetle has me. My! how he pinches!”
The professor pulled up his fingers, and clinging to one of them was a large, black beetle, which had drawn blood.
“Look at that, would you!” cried Bob. “I wouldn’t want one of them to get on me.”
“They have rather powerful mandibles,” admitted the professor. “If one of you will hand me my cyanide bottle I’ll get rid of this fellow.”
Jerry handed over a large-mouthed bottle which the scientist had placed with his specimen box a little distance from him. The bottom of the flask was filled with plaster of Paris, in which was mixed cyanide of potassium. This gives off a very poisonous gas. Insects dropped into the bottle die painlessly. The professor held the beetle, still clinging to his finger, down inside the bottle, and in a few seconds the queer, burrowing insect dropped to the bottom of the bottle, which the professor corked.
“A very successful capture,” he remarked. “Now for another.”
“Do you mean to say you are going to put your fingers down another hole and run the chance of getting bitten?” asked Jerry.