46 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



Let us now give a brief description of the grub, with- 

 out stopping to enumerate the articulations of the palpi 

 and antennae, irksome details of no immediate interest. 

 It is a fat worm and has a fine, white skin, with pale 

 slate-coloured reflections proceeding from the digestive 

 organs, which are visible transparently. Bent into a 

 broken arch or hook, it is not unlike the grub of the 

 Cockchafer, but has a much more ungainly figure, for. 

 on its back, at the sudden bend of the hook, the third, 

 fourth and fifth segments of the abdomen swell into 



an enormous protuberance, a 

 tumour, a pouch so prominent 

 that the skin seems on the 

 point of bursting under the 

 pressure of the contents. This 

 is the animal's most striking 

 feature : the fact that it 

 carries a wallet. 



The head is small in pro- 

 portion to the size of the grub, 

 slightly convex and bright 

 red, studded with a few pale 

 bristles. The legs are fairly 

 long and sturdy, ending in 

 a pointed tarsus. The grub does not use them as limbs 

 of progression. Taken from its shell and placed upon 

 the table, it struggles in clumsy contortions without 

 succeeding in shifting its position ; and the cripple 

 betrays its anxiety by repeated eruptions of its mortar. 



Let us also mention the terminal trowel, the last seg- 

 ment lopped into a slanting disk and rimmed with a fleshy 

 pad. In the centre of this inclined plane is the open 

 stercoral gash, which thus, by a very unusual inversion, 



-Grub of tlie Sacred 

 Beetle. 



