The Problem of the Sirex 



excess of monotonous repetition. The gen- 

 eral law stands out very clearly from these 

 few data: the wood-eating grubs of the 

 Longicorns and Buprestes prepare the path 

 of deliverance for the perfect insect, which 

 will have merely in one case to pass a barri- 

 cade of shavings or wormed wood, or in an- 

 other to pierce a slight thickness of wood or 

 bark. Thanks to a curious reversal of its 

 usual attributes, youth is here the season of 

 energy, of strong tools, of stubborn work; 

 adult age is the season of leisure, of industrial 

 ignorance, of idle diversions, without trade or 

 profession. The infant has its paradise in 

 the arms of its mother, its providence; here 

 the infant, the grub, is the providence of the 

 mother. With its patient tooth, which 

 neither the perils of the outside world nor 

 the difficult task of boring through hard wood 

 are able to deter, it clears a way for her to 

 the supreme delights of the sun. The young- 

 ster prepares an easy life for the adult. 



Can these armour-wearers, so sturdy in 

 appearance, be weaklings? I place nymphs 

 of all the species that come to hand in glass 

 tubes of the same diameter as the natal cell, 

 lined with coarse paper, which will provide 

 a good purchase for the boring. The ob- 

 stacle to be pierced varies: a cork a centi- 

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