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 ev^er, 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. 



288 



