The Life of the Caterpillar 



Does it show that the absence of these organs 

 has made them incapable of finding the wire 

 bell in which the prisoner awaits them? Not 

 at all. Like the shorn ones, whose operation 

 has left them uninjured, they prove only that 

 their time is up. Whether maimed or intact, 

 they are unfit for duty because of their age; 

 and their non-return is valueless as evidence. 

 For lack of the time necessary for experi- 

 menting, the part played by the antennae es- 

 capes us. Doubtful it was and doubtful it 

 remains. 



My caged prisoner lives for eight days. 

 Every evening she draws for my benefit a 

 swarm of visitors, in varying numbers, now 

 to one part of the house, now to another, as 

 I please. I catch them, as they come, with 

 the net and transfer them, the moment they 

 are captured, to a closed room, in which they 

 spend the night. Next morning, I mark them 

 with a tonsure on the thorax. 



The aggregate of the visitors during those 

 eight evenings amounts to a hundred and 

 fifty, an astounding number when I consider 

 how hard I had to seek during the following 

 two years to collect the materials necessary 

 for continuing these observations. Though 

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