The Capricorn 



apart from its skull and its equipment of 

 tools, the grub has a skin as fine as satin and 

 as white as ivory. This dead white comes 

 from a copious layer of grease which the 

 animal's spare diet would not lead us to sus- 

 pect. True, it has nothing to do, at every 

 hour of the day and night, but gnaw. The 

 quantity of wood that passes into its stomach 

 makes up for the dearth of nourishing ele- 

 ments. 



The legs, consisting of three pieces, the 

 first globular, the last sharp-pointed, are 

 mere rudiments, vestiges. They are hardly 

 a millimetre ^ long. For this reason, they 

 are of no use whatever for walking; they do 

 not even bear upon the supporting surface, 

 being kept off it by the obesity of the chest. 

 The organs of locomotion are something al- 

 together different. The Cetonia-grub ^ has 

 shown us how, with the aid of the hairs and 

 the pad-like excrescences upon its spine, it 

 manages to reverse the universally-accepted 

 usage and to wriggle along on its back. The 

 grub of the Capricorn is even more ingeni- 

 ous : it moves at the same time on its back 



1 .039 inch. — Translator's Note. 



- For the grub of the Cetonia, or Rose-chafer, cf. The 

 Life and Love of the Insect, by J. Henri Fabre, translated 

 by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xi. — Translator' f 

 Note. 



180 



