More Beetles 



being diverted from them by the worries of 

 egg-laying. The gardens offer the luscious 

 pear and the wrinkled fig, its eye moist with 

 syrup. The greedy creature takes posses- 

 sion of them and becomes oblivious to all 

 else. 



However, the dog-days are becoming 

 more and more pitiless. Day after day, 

 another load of brushwood, as our peasants 

 say. Is added to the furnace of the sun. Ex- 

 cessive heat, like cold, produces a suspension 

 of life. To kill the time, creatures that are 

 grilled or frozen go to sleep. The Ceto- 

 niae in my breeding-cage bury themselves in 

 the sand, a couple of Inches down. The 

 sweetest fruits no longer tempt them: it is 

 too hot. 



It takes the moderate temperature of Sep- 

 tember to wake them from their torpor. 

 At this season they reappear on the surface; 

 they settle down to my bits of melon-rind, 

 or slake their thirst at a small bunch of 

 grapes, but soberly, taking only short 

 draughts. The hunger-fits of early days and 

 the interminable filling of the belly have 

 gone for ever. 



Now comes the cold weather. Again my 

 captives disappear underground. Here they 

 pass the winter, protected only by a layer of 



10 



