A friend sends me a dozen from Cette, from the very beach on which I once passed a delightful morning in the company of this skilful mimic of the dead. They reach me in perfect condition, mixed up in the same package with some Pimeliæ (P. bipunctata, FAB.), their compatriots in the sands beside the sea. Of these last, a pitiable crew, many have been disembowelled, absolutely emptied; others have merely stumps instead of legs; a few, but only a few, are unwounded.
It was what one might have expected of these Carabidæ, lawless hunters one and all. Tragic events took place in the box during the journey from Cette to Sérignan. The Scarites gormandized riotously on the peaceable Pimeliæ.
Their tracks, which I followed long ago on the actual spot, bore evidence to their nocturnal rounds, apparently in search of their prey, the pot-bellied Pimelia, whose sole defence consists of a strong armour of welded wing-cases.4 But what can such a cuirass avail against the bandit's ruthless pincers?
4 The Pimelia is a wingless Beetle.—Translator's Note.
He is indeed a mighty hunter, this Nimrod of the sea-shore. All black and glossy, like a jet bugle, his body is divided by a very narrow groove at the waist. His weapon of offence consists of a pair of claw-like mandibles of extraordinary vigour. None of our insects equals him in strength of jaw, if we except the Stag-beetle, who is far better armed, or rather decorated, for the antlered mandibles of the inmate of the oak are ornaments of the male's attire, not a panoply of battle.
The brutal Carabid, the eviscerator of the Pimeliæ, knows how strong he is. If I tease him a little on the table, he at once adopts a posture of defence. Well braced upon his short legs, especially the fore-legs, which are toothed like rakes, he dislocates himself in two, so to speak, thanks to the groove that divides him behind the corselet; he proudly raises the fore-part of the body, his wide, heart-shaped thorax and massive head, opening his threatening pincers to their full extent. He is now an awesome sight. More: he has the audacity to rush at the finger which has touched him. Here of a surety is one not easily intimidated. I look twice before I handle him.
I lodge my strangers partly under a wire-gauze cover and partly in glass jars, all supplied with a layer of sand. Each of them without delay digs himself a burrow. The insect bends his head a long way down and, with the points of his mandibles, brought together to form a pick-axe, he hews, digs and excavates with a will. The fore-legs, spread out and armed with hooks, gather the dust and rubbish into a load which is thrust backwards. In this way, a mound rises on the threshold of the burrow. The dwelling grows deeper quickly and by a gentle slope reaches the bottom of the jar.
Checked in the downward direction, the Scarites now digs against the glass wall and continues his work horizontally until he has obtained a length of nearly twelve inches in all.
This arrangement of the gallery, almost the whole of which runs just under the glass, is very useful to me, enabling me to follow the insect in the privacy of its home. If I wish to observe its underground operations, all that I need do is to remove the opaque sheath which I have been careful to put over the jar, in order to spare the creature the annoyance of the light.
When the house is deemed to be long enough, the Scarites returns to the entrance, which he works more carefully than the rest. He makes a funnel of it, a pit with shifting, sloping sides. It is the Ant-lion's crater on a larger scale and constructed in a more rustic fashion. This mouth is continued by an inclined plane, kept free of all rubbish. At the foot of the slope is the vestibule of the horizontal gallery. Here, as a rule, the hunter lurks, motionless, with his pincers half open. He is waiting.