The Life of the Caterpillar 



see merely a repetition of the feats of the 

 Great Peacock. 



A well-closed box, the air contained in 

 which does not communicate with the outer 

 atmosphere, leaves the Monk in complete ig- 

 norance of the prisoner's whereabouts. Not 

 one arrives, even when the box is exposed for 

 every eye to see in the window. This brings 

 back, more urgently than ever, the idea of 

 odoriferous effluvia, intransmissible through a 

 wall of metal, cardboard, wood or glass, no 

 matter which. 



When put to the test, the great night Moth 

 was not baffled by the naphthaline, whose po- 

 werful smell ought, to my thinking, to mask 

 ultrasubtle emanations, imperceptible to any 

 human nostrils. I repeat the experiment with 

 the Monk. This time I lavish all the re- 

 sources in the way of scents and stenches that 

 my store of drugs permits. 



I place the saucers, partly inside the wire- 

 gauze cage, the female's prison, and partly 

 all round it, in a continuous circle. Some con- 

 tain naphthaline, others oil of lavender, 

 others paraffin, others, lastly, alkaline sul- 

 phurs smelling of rotten eggs. Short of 

 asphyxiating the prisoner, I can do no more. 



