The human species puts its assassins into striped clothing and it is a rather curious coincidence to find in the insect world an assassin bug in convict’s stripes.
I think no visitor to our portrait gallery has seen a more fantastic being than this little bow-legged beast. Until I found out what he was, I could not understand his rank impertinence, for he stalked leisurely about as though afraid of nothing.
I wonder if he has a nasty flavor and advertises the fact by his curious coat.
AN ASSASSINATION
(Pselliopus cinctus, Fab.)
I once took a photograph, without realizing it, of some Arab women at the gates of Bagdad, trying to assassinate an old man; and I cannot pass the picture in my album without shuddering.
This photograph affects me in the same way, for it, too, is of a real tragedy and portrays the death of a ladybird, one of the few friends man has in the whole order of beetles, and that, too, at the hands of a member of the order of bugs, the most destructive order of our insect pests.