36 or so hours after I videoed this black beetle out the back door after midnight, I am certain this is the same little fellow, drowned in the water bucket I leave for our cat, Cadbury, and other strays. I was lamenting how few beetles I see these last few years, and now this one has died by misadventure. I am saddened for it and its kind. Just as with grasshoppers, I see few beetles anymore in my yard, especially of any reasonable size, and this bothers me. It is another class of insects that appear to me to be in far lesser numbers than years past, although this is a subjective observation of mine. What’s going on in addition to pesticide usage? I read Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ in the late ‘60’s, while still a boy, and she foretold what we have an ominous taste of these days.