58 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



recluse by offering him a place to start upon, an exit 

 that only needs widening. But not at all : these favoured 

 ones advance no quicker with their work than the rest. 



In less than a fortnight, silence prevails in aU the 

 shells. The prisoners, worn out with ineffectual efforts, 

 have perished. I break the caskets containing the 

 deceased. A meagre pinch of dust, representing hardly 

 an average pea in bulk, is all that the sturdy imple- 

 ments — rasp, saw, harrow and rake — have succeeded in 

 sundering from the invincible wall. 



Other shells, of a similar hardness, are wrapped in 

 a wet rag and enclosed in a flask. When the moisture 

 has soaked through them, I relieve them of their wrapper 

 and keep them in the corked flask. This time, events 

 take a very different turn. Softened to a nicety by the 

 wet rag, the shells burst, ripped open by the shove of the 

 prisoner, who props himself boldly on his legs, using his 

 back as a lever ; or else, scraped away at one point, they 

 crumble to pieces and yawn with a wide breach. The 

 success is complete. In each case, the delivery is effected 

 without impediment ; a few drops of water have brought 

 them the joys of the sun. 



For the second time, HorapoUo was right. Certainly, 

 it is not the mother, as the old author says, who throws 

 her ball into the water : it is the clouds that provide the 

 liberating ablution, the rain that facilitates the ultimate 

 release. In the natural state, thmgs must happen as in 

 my experiments. In August, in a burnt soil, under a 

 thin screen of earth, the shells, baked like bricks, are for 

 most of the time as hard as pebbles. It is impossible for 

 the insect to wear out its casket and escape from it. 

 But, should a shower come upon the scene — that life- 

 giving baptism which the seed of the plant and the 



