More Beetles 



cessive numbers. In order to perform 

 their pressing task more quickly, the mag- 

 gots operate in ' legions. If not checked, 

 they would encumber the world. The bal- 

 ance of things in general demands their dis- 

 appearance. Then, in due season, the ex- 

 terminator arrives, the Saprinus doting on 

 fat sausages, the slow-trotting Beetle in 

 black armour who massacres the vermin and 

 leaves only enough survivors to maintain 

 the race. 



The Mole is now a dried-up mummy, but 

 is harmful if affected by moisture. This 

 remnant also has to disappear. The Derm- 

 estes is entrusted with the task. She estab- 

 lishes herself beneath the remains in com- 

 pany with the Silpha, her collaborator. 

 With her patient tooth she files, rasps and 

 disarticulates as long as a scrap of cartilage 

 is left to gnaw. She is greatly assisted by 

 her starveling larvae, who are lither in the 

 back and therefore able to slip into narrow 

 crevices. 



By the time the Dermestes has finished, 

 my pans contain so many heaps of bones, a 

 conglomeration of Snakes' vertebrae ar- 

 ranged in a row, Moles' jaws, with their 

 fine, insectivorous teeth, Frogs' toe-and-fin- 

 56 



