THE GREAT PEACOCK 187 



set them apart as they came in a room in which they 

 spent the night. On the morrow, profiting by their 

 diurnal immobility, I removed a little of the hair from 

 the centre of the corselet or neck. This slight tonsure 

 did not inconvenience the insects, so easily was the silky 

 fur removed, nor did it deprive them of any organ which 

 might later on be necessary in the search for the female. 

 To them it was nothing ; for me it was the unmistakable 

 sign of a repeated visit. 



This time there were none incapable of flight. At 

 night the fourteen shavelings escaped into the open air. 

 The cage, of course, was again in a new place. In two 

 hours I captured twenty butterflies, of whom two were 

 tonsured ; no more. As for those whose antennae I had 

 amputated the night before, not one reappeared. Their 

 nuptial period was over. 



Of fourteen marked by the tonsure two only returned. 

 Why did the other twelve fail to appear, although 

 furnished with their supposed guides, their antennae? 

 To this I can see only one reply : that the Great Peacock 

 is promptly exhausted by the ardours of the mating 

 season. 



With a view to mating, the sole end of its life, the 

 great moth is endowed with a marvellous prerogative. It 

 has the power to discover the object of its desire in spite 

 of distance, in spite of obstacles. A few hours, for two 

 or three nights, are given to its search, its nuptial flights. 

 If it cannot profit by them, all is ended ; the compass 

 fails, the lamp expires. What profit could life hold 

 henceforth ? Stoically the creature withdraws into a 

 corner and sleeps the last sleep, the end of illusions and 

 the end of suffering. 



