The Sacred Beetle: the Larva 



enquire what is happening. The breach is 

 perceived. The head disappears. I can 

 just see the white back turning about in the 

 narrow cabin; and, then and there, the 

 window which I have made is closed with a 

 soft, brown paste, which soon hardens. 



The inside of the cabin, said I to myself, 

 is no doubt a semifluid porridge. Turning 

 round, as is shown by the sudden slide of its 

 back, the grub has collected a handful of 

 this material and, completing the circuit, has 

 stuck its load, by way of mortar, in the 

 breach which It considered dangerous. I 

 remove the plug. The grub acts as before, 

 puts its head at the window, withdraws it, 

 spins round as easily as a nut in its shell and 

 forthwith produces a second plug as ample 

 as the first. Forewarned of what was 

 coming, this time I saw more clearly. 



What a mistake I had made ! However, 

 I am not so much startled as I might be : in 

 the art of defence, animals often employ 

 means which our imagination would not dare 

 to contemplate. It is not the grub's head 

 that is presented at the breach, after the 

 preliminary twisting: it is the other ex- 

 tremity. It does not bring a lump of its 

 ahmentary dough, gathered by scraping the 

 walls: it excretes upon the aperture to be 

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