The White-faced Decticus: the Eggs 



chest. With its big, black ocular specks and 

 its undecided and rather bloated mask, it 

 suggests a diver's helmet. The neck opens 

 wide at the back and, with a slow throbbing, 

 by turns swells and subsides. That is the 

 motor. The new-born insect moves along 

 with the aid of its occipital hernia. When 

 uninflated, the fore-part pushes back the 

 damp sand a little way and slips into it by 

 digging a tiny pit; then, blown out, it be- 

 comes a knob, which moulds itself and finds 

 a support in the depression obtained. Then 

 the rear-end contracts; and this gives a step 

 forward. Each thrust of the locomotive 

 blister means nearly a millimetre ^ traversed. 



It is pitiful to see this budding flesh, 

 scarcely tinged with pink, knocking with its 

 dropsical neck and ramming the rough soil. 

 The animal glair, not yet quite hardened, 

 struggles painfully with stone; and its efforts 

 are so well directed that, in the space of a 

 morning, a gallery opens, either straight or 

 winding, an inch long and as wide as an 

 average straw. In this way the harassed 

 insect reaches the surface. 



Half-caught in its exit-shaft, the disin- 

 terred one halts, waits for its strength to 



* .039 inch. — Translator's Note. 

 243 



