The Larva and the Nymph 



moults; and its cast skin often remains caught 

 in the opening through which it made its 

 exit. It rests after the moulting and then 

 attacks a second ration. Being stronger 

 now, the larva has nothing to fear from the 

 feeble movements of the Cricket, whose 

 daily-increasing torpor has had time to ex- 

 tinguish the last glimmers of resisting-power 

 during the week and more that have elapsed 

 since the dagger-thrusts were given. It is 

 therefore assailed with no precautions, 

 usually at the belly, which is the tenderest 

 part and the richest in juices. Soon the turn 

 comes of the third Cricket and lastly of the 

 fourth, who is devoured in ten hours or so. 

 Of these last three victims, all that remains 

 is the tough integuments, whose various parts 

 are severed one by one and carefully emptied. 

 If a fifth ration be presented, the larva scorns 

 it, or hardly touches it, not from abstemious- 

 ness, but from imperious necessity. For ob- 

 serve that hitherto the larva has ejected no 

 excrement and that its intestines, into which 

 four Crickets have been crammed, are dis- 

 tended to bursting-point. A new ration can- 

 not therefore tempt its gluttony; and hence- 

 forth it thinks only of making itself a silken 

 tabernacle. 



97 



