316 A SHAMELESS BRIGAND. 
towards the close of the last century, the bees themselves, by an unfore- 
seen stroke, had not definitively cut the Gordian knot. 
It was about the epoch of the American, and shortly before the out- 
break of the French, Revolution. An unknown creature then made its 
appearance over all Europe,—of a frightful figure-—a great strong 
nocturnal butterfly, marked very plainly in tawny-gray, with a hideous 
death’s head. This sinister being, which none had seen before, alarmed 
every countryside, and seemed an omen of the most terrible misfortunes. 
Yet, in truth, those who were terrified by it had brought it into Europe. 
It had come in the grub condition with its natal plant, the American 
potato,—the fashionable vegetable which Parmentier extolled, Louis X VI. 
protected, and which spread in all directions. The savants baptized the 
insect with a somewhat horrifying name—the Sphinx Atropos. 
And terrible indeed was this new creature, but only for the honey. 
Of this it was remorselessly greedy, and to attain it was capable of 
everything. A hive of thirty thousand bees could not daunt it. In 
the depths of night, the rapacious monster, profiting by the hour when 
the approaches to the city are less carefully guarded, with a gloomy but 
subdued sound, as if stifled by the soft down which covers it (and all 
other nocturnal insects), invaded the hive, swooped down on the combs, 
devoured and plundered, gutted and destroyed the magazines, and slew 
the infant bees. In vain they awoke, and flew to arms; their sting 
could not penetrate through the soft elastic padding which clothed the 
sphinx,—like the cotton armour worn by the Mexicans in the days of 
Cortez, and impenetrable by Spanish weapons. 
Huber meditated on the best means of protecting his bees against 
this shameless brigand. Should it be by gratings, or doors? And how ? 
He could not determine. The most skilfully devised barriers have 
always the inconvenience of impeding the great movement of ingress 
and egress, which takes place at the threshold of the hive. Their im- 
patience regarded as intolerable the obstructions, which could not fail 
to embarrass them, and against which they might break their wings. 
One morning, Huber’s faithful assistant, who seconded him in his 
experiments, brought information that the bees themselves had already 
solved the problem. In different hives they had conceived and attempted 
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