THE CAPRICORN 49 



it lives on the wood that gives it shelter. Let us make 

 an attempt or two, however. I scoop in a log of fresh 

 cypress-wood a groove of the same diameter as that of 

 the natural galleries and I place the worm inside it. 

 Cypress-wood is strongly scented; it possesses in a high 

 degree that resinous aroma which characterizes most of 

 the pine family. Well, when laid in the odoriferous 

 channel, the larva goes to the end, as far as it can go, 

 and makes no further movement. Does not this placid 

 quiescence point to the absence of a sense of smell? 

 The resinous flavor, so strange to the grub which has 

 always lived in oak, ought to vex it, to trouble it; and 

 the disagreeable impression ought to be revealed by a 

 certain commotion, by certain attempts to get away. 

 Well, nothing of the kind happens: once the larva has 

 found the right position in the groove, it does not stir. 

 I do more : I set before it, at a very short distance in its 

 normal canal a piece of camphor. Again, no effect. 

 Camphor is followed by naphthaline. Still nothing. 

 After these fruitless endeavors, I do not think that I am 

 going too far when I deny the creature a sense of smell. 



Taste is there, no doubt. But such taste! The food 

 is without variety : oak, for three years at a stretch, and 

 nothing else. What can the grub's palate appreciate in 

 this monotonous fare? The tannic relish of a fresh 

 piece, oozing with sap; the uninteresting flavor of an 

 over-dry piece, robbed of its natural condiment: these 

 probably represent the whole gustative scale. 



There remains touch, the far-spreading, passive sense 

 common to all live flesh that quivers under the goad of 



