[[Contents]]

CONTENTS

PAGE
[TRANSLATOR’S NOTE]v
CHAPTER
I [THE CETONIÆ] 1
II [SAPRINI, DERMESTES AND OTHERS] 34
III [THE BEADED TROX] 55
IV [MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: THE BURROW] 72
V [MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: FIRST ATTEMPTS AT OBSERVATION] 98
VI [MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: FURTHER OBSERVATIONS] 125
VII [MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: MORALITY] 152
VIII [THE ERGATES; THE COSSUS] 172
IX [THE PINE COCKCHAFER] 194
X [THE VEGETARIAN INSECTS] 215
XI [THE DWARFS] 238
XII [SOME ANOMALIES] [[viii]]255
XIII [THE GOLD BEETLES: THEIR FOOD] 278
XIV [THE GOLD BEETLES: THEIR NUPTIAL HABITS]299
[INDEX] 317

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MORE BEETLES

[[1]]

CHAPTER I

THE CETONIÆ

My hermitage boasts a long, wide lilac-walk. When May is here and the two rows of bushes, bending beneath their load of clustering blooms, form pointed arches overhead, this walk becomes a chapel, in which the loveliest festival of the year is celebrated beneath the kisses of the morning sun: a peaceful festival, with no flags flapping at the windows, no expenditure of gun-powder, no drunken squabbles; a festival of simple creatures disturbed neither by the harsh brass band of the dance nor by the shouts of the crowd acclaiming the amateur who has just won a silk handkerchief at the hop, skip and jump. Vulgar delights of drinks and crackers, how far removed are you from this solemn celebration!