THE GLOW-WORM 



Lampyris possesses. At the hinder end of the animal 

 we see a white spot which the lens separates into some 

 dozen short, fleshy appendages, sometimes gathered into 

 a cluster, sometimes spread into a rosette. There is 

 your organ of adhesion and locomotion. If he would 

 fix himself somewhere, even on a very smooth surface, 

 such as a grass-stalk, the Glow-worm opens his rosette 

 and spreads it wide on the support, to which it adheres 

 by its own stickiness. The same organ, rising and fall- 

 ing, opening and closing, does much to assist the act of 

 progression. In short, the Glow-worm is a new sort of 

 self-propelled cripple, who decks his hind-quarters with 

 a dainty white rose, a kind of hand with twelve fingers, 

 not jointed, but moving in every direction: tubular fin- 

 gers which do not seize, but stick. 



The same organ serves another purpose: that of a 

 toilet-sponge and brush. At a moment of rest, after a 

 meal, the Glow-worm passes and repasses the said brush 

 over his head, back, sides and hinder parts, a perform- 

 ance made possible by the flexibility of his spine. This 

 is done point by point, from one end of the body to the 

 other, with a scrupulous persistency that proves the great 

 interest which he takes in the operation. What is his 

 object in thus sponging himself, in dusting and polishing 

 himself so carefully? It is a question, apparently, of 

 removing a few atoms of dust or else some traces of 

 viscidity that remain from the evil contact with the Snail. 

 A wash and brush-up is not superfluous when one leaves 

 the tub in which the Mollusc has been treated. 



If the Glow-worm possessed no other talent than that 



