Can it be their custom to finish off the wounded and to ransack the stomach of an injured kinsman? Pity is unknown among the insects. At the sight of the desperate struggles of a crippled relation, not one of the same race will stop, not one will try to help him. With carnivorous insects, matters may take an even more tragic turn. Sometimes the passers-by will run up to the invalid. Do they do so in order to assist him? Not at all: they do it to see what he tastes like and, if they find him good, to cure his ills thoroughly by devouring him.
It is therefore possible that the Carabus with the damaged wing-cases tempted his comrades by the sight of his partly denuded body. They saw in their helpless brother a prey which it was lawful to dissect. But do they respect one another when there is no previous injury? At first sight, everything would seem to show that their relations are very peaceful. There is never any scuffling [[305]]between the feasters at their meals, nothing but mouth-to-mouth robberies. Nor are there any quarrels during the long siestas under the cover of the board. Half-buried in the cool earth, my five-and-twenty specimens quietly slumber and digest their food, at no great distance one from the other, each in his little trench. If I take away the shelter, they awake, make off, run hither and thither, constantly meeting without molesting one another.
Profound peace therefore prevails and seems likely to last for ever when, on inspecting the cage during the first heats of June, I find a dead Carabus. His limbs are intact; he is very neatly reduced to a mere golden husk; he shows us once more what we saw in the helpless Beetle who was lately devoured; he reminds us of the shell of the eaten Oyster. I examine the remains. But for the huge breach in the abdomen, all is as it should be. So the insect was in good health when the others gutted it.
A few days later, yet another Carabus is slain and treated like the others, with all the various pieces of the armour undisturbed. If we lay him on his belly, he seems as though intact; if we lay him on his back, he [[306]]is hollow, without a scrap of flesh left inside his carapace. A little later I find another empty relic, then another, and yet another, until my menagerie is rapidly diminishing. If this frenzied slaughter continues, I shall soon have nothing left in the vivarium.
Can it be that my Gold Beetles, worn out by age, die a natural death or that the females batten on the corpses, or is the population being reduced at the expense of hale and hearty subjects? It is not easy to elucidate the matter, for the disembowelling usually takes place at night. Nevertheless, by exerting vigilance, I twice succeed in observing the autopsy by daylight.
In the middle of June, before my eyes a female sets to work upon a male, whom I recognize as such by his rather smaller size. The operation begins. Lifting the ends of the wing-cases, the assailant seizes her victim by the tip of the abdomen, on the dorsal surface. Eagerly she tugs and munches. The captive, though in the pink of condition, does not defend himself, does not turn round. He pulls his hardest in the opposite direction, to release himself from the terrible mandibles; he moves this way or that, according as he is dragging his aggressor or being [[307]]dragged by her; and here his resistance ends. The combat lasts a quarter of an hour. Other Beetles passing by, stop, as though to say:
“My turn next.”
At last, redoubling his efforts, the male frees himself and escapes. No doubt, if he had not succeeded in getting away, he would have had his belly gutted by the fearsome dame.
A few days later I witness a similar scene, but this time the tragedy is completed. Once more it is a female who seizes a male from behind. The bitten one submits with no more protest than his vain efforts to release himself. The skin at last gives way, the wound widens, the viscera are rooted out and swallowed by the matron, who empties the carapace with her head buried in her compeer’s belly. The tremors of the poor wretch’s legs announce his approaching end. The murderess takes no notice and continues to rummage as far up as the narrow entrance to the thorax allows her to go. Nothing is left of the deceased but the wing-cases, packed boat-wise, and the fore-part of the body, which is not disjointed. The empty remains are abandoned where they lie. [[308]]
So must have perished the Gold Beetles, always males, whose relics I find from time to time in the cage; thus the survivors too must perish. Between the middle of June and the first of August, the inmates, numbering twenty-five at the outset, are reduced to five females. All the twenty males have disappeared, ripped open and drained dry. And by whom? Apparently by the females.