while still open, enables it to soak with varnish both the inside and
the outside of the inner shell, which has to acquire the consistency
of parchment; lastly, the cap which completes and closes the structure
leaves for the future a circular line capable of splitting easily and
neatly.

This is enough on the subject of the Scolia-grub. Let us go back to
its provender, of whose remarkable structure we as yet know nothing. In
order that it may be consumed with the delicate anatomical discretion
imposed by the necessity of having fresh food to the last, the
Cetonia-grub must be plunged into a state of absolute immobility: any
twitchings on its part--as the experiments which I have undertaken go
to prove--would discourage our nibbling larva and impede the work of
carving, which has to be effected with so much circumspection. It is not
enough for the victim to be unable to move from place to place beneath
the soil: in addition to this, the contractible power in its sturdy
muscular organism must be suppressed.

In its normal state, this larva, at the very least disturbance, curls
itself up, almost as the Hedgehog does; and the two halves of the
ventral surface are laid one against the other. You are quite surprised
at the strength which the creature displays in keeping itself thus
contracted. If you try to unroll it, your fingers encounter a resistance
far greater than the size of the animal would have caused you to
suspect. To overcome the resistance of this sort of spring coiled upon
itself, you have to force it, so much so that you are afraid, if you
persist, of seeing the indomitable spiral suddenly burst and shoot forth
its entrails.

A similar muscular energy is found in the larvae of the Oryctes (Also
known as the Rhinoceros Beetle.--Translator's Note.), the Anoxia (A
Beetle akin to the Cockchafer.--Translator's Note.), the Cockchafer.
Weighed down by a heavy belly and living underground, where they feed
either on leaf-mould or on roots, these larvae all possess the vigorous
constitution needed to drag their corpulence through a resisting medium.
All of them also roll themselves into a hook which is not straightened
without an effort.

Now what would become of the egg and the new-born grub of the Scoliae,
fixed under the belly, at the centre of the Cetonia's spiral, or inside
the hook of the Oryctes or the Anoxia? They would be crushed between the
jaws of the living vice. It is essential that the arc should slac