Other Leaf-Rollers 



ing away a match, sets fire to the neighbour- 

 ing meadows. You cannot call it a summer: 

 it is a conflagration. 



What can the Attelabus be doing in such 

 disastrous weather? She is thriving com- 

 fortably in my jars, which keep her victuals 

 soft for her; but, at the foot of her oak, 

 amid the undergrowth shrivelled as though 

 by the breath of a furnace, on the calcined 

 earth, what becomes of the poor thing? Let 

 us go and see. 



Beneath the oaks which she was exploiting 

 in June, I succeed in finding, among the dead 

 leaves, a dozen of her little barrels. They 

 have retained their green colour, so suddenly 

 did the dessication seize them. They crack 

 and crumble into dust under the pressure of 

 the fingers. 



I open a barrel. In the middle is the 

 grub, looking fit enough, but how small ! 

 It is hardly larger than when it left the egg. 

 Is it dead or alive, this yellow atom? Its 

 immobility proclaims it to be dead; its un- 

 faded colour proclaims it to be alive. I 

 break open a second barrel, a third. In the 

 middle there is always a yellow grub, motion- 

 less and quite small, as though newly-born. 

 191 



