The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



on a sticky fluid; instead of living in broad 

 daylight, it has to remain plunged in the pro- 

 foundest darkness. Its sharp mandibles 

 must therefore become hollowed into a spoon 

 that they may scoop up the honey; its legs, 

 its cirri, its balancing-appliances must dis- 

 appear as useless and even harmful, since all 

 these organs can only involve the larva in 

 serious danger, by causing it to stick in the 

 honey; its slender shape, its horny in- 

 teguments, its ocelli, being no longer neces- 

 sary in a dark cell where movement is im- 

 possible, where there are no rough en- 

 counters to be feared, may likewise give place 

 to complete blindness, to soft integuments, 

 to a heavy, slothful form. This transfigura- 

 tion, which everything shows to be indis- 

 pensable to the life of the larva, is effected 

 by a simple moult. 



We do not so plainly perceive the necessity 

 of the subsequent forms, which are so ab- 

 normal that nothing like them is known in 

 all the rest of the insect class. The larva 

 which is fed on honey first adopts a false 

 chrysaUd appearance and afterwards goes 

 back to its earlier form, though the necessity 

 for these transformations escapes us entirely. 

 Here I am obliged to record the facts and to 

 leave the task of interpreting them to the 

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