The Life of the Grasshopper 



and there is no way of replenishing it in 

 the absence of a live root. My suspicion of 

 failure is well-founded. For three days I 

 see the entombed one wasting itself in ef- 

 forts without succeeding in rising an inch 

 higher. The materials removed refuse to 

 stay in position for lack of anything to bind 

 them; they are no sooner pushed aside than 

 they slip down again under the insect's legs. 

 The labour has no perceptible result and 

 has always to be done all over again. On 

 the fourth day, the creature dies. 



With the water-can full, the result is quite 

 different. I subject to the same experiment 

 an insect whose work of self-deliverance is 

 just beginning. It is all swollen with 

 urinary humours which ooze out and moisten 

 its whole body. This one's task is easy. 

 The materials offer hardly any resistance. 

 A little moisture, supplied by the miner's 

 flask, converts them into mud, sticks them 

 together and keeps them out of the way. 

 The passage is opened, very irregular in 

 shape, it is true, and almost filled up at the 

 back as the ascent proceeds. It is as though 

 the larva, recognizing the impossibility of 

 renewing its store of fluid, were saving up 

 the little which it possesses and spending no 



40 



