Further Observations 



egg takes about four weeks to hatch. The 

 first that I find, dating from the I7th of 

 April, gives birth to a grub on the I5th of 

 May. This slow process of hatching can be 

 due only to an insufficiency of heat in the 

 early spring : underground, at a depth of five 

 feet, the temperature hardly varies. 



For that matter, we shall see the larva 

 likewise taking its time and going through 

 the whole summer before changing into the 

 adult insect. It is so snug inside a sausage, 

 in a cellar free from atmospheric variations, 

 far from the hurly-burly of the outer world, 

 where rejoicings are not unattended by dan- 

 ger; it is so sweet to do nothing, to indulge 

 in digestive slumbers! Why hurry? The 

 bustle of active life will come but too soon. 

 The Minotaurs seem to hold that opinion : 

 they prolong as far as may be the bliss of 

 infancy. 



The grub which has just been born in the 

 sand pegs away with its legs and mandibles, 

 strains and heaves with its rump, makes it- 

 self a passage and, from one day to the next, 

 reaches the provisions piled up above it. 

 In the glass tube in which I rear it I see it 

 climbing, slipping into crevices, making a 

 selection from the food about it and caprici- 

 145 



