FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



"no one would care for them after we are gone. Let us 

 kill everything, eggs and grubs alike. A violent end is 

 better than a slow death by starvation." 



A massacre follows. The grubs are seized by the 

 scruff of the neck, brutally torn from their cells, dragged 

 out of the nest, and thrown into the refuse-heap at the 

 bottom of the cave. The nurses, or workers, root them 

 out of their cells as violently as though they were 

 strangers or dead bodies. They tug at them savagely 

 and tear them. Then the eggs are ripped open and de- 

 voured. 



Before much longer the nurses themselves, the execu- 

 tioners, are languidly dragging what remains of their 

 lives. Day by day, with a curiosity mingled with 

 emotion, I watch the end of my insects. The workers 

 die suddenly. They come to the surface, slip down, fall 

 on their backs and rise no more, as if they were struck 

 by lightning. They have had their day; they are slain 

 by age, that merciless poison. Even so does a piece of 

 clockwork become motionless when its mainspring has 

 unwound its last spiral. 



The workers are old : but the mothers are the last to 

 be born into the nest, and have all the vigour of youth. 

 And so, when winter sickness seizes them, they are 

 capable of a certain resistance. Those whose end is near 

 are easily distinguished from the others by the disorder 



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