FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



take no precaution to place the egg under cover, and in- 

 deed the structure of the mother makes any such pre- 

 caution impossible. The egg, that delicate object, is 

 laid roughly in the blazing sun, among grains of sand, 

 in some wrinkle of the chalk. It is the business of the 

 young grub to manage as best it can. 



The next year I continued my investigations, this time 

 on the Anthrax of the Chalicodoma, a Bee that abounds 

 in my own neighbourhood. Every morning I took the 

 field at nine o'clock, when the sun begins to be unendur- 

 able. I was prepared to come back with my head aching 

 from the glare, if only I could bring home the solution of 

 my puzzle. The greater the heat, the better my chances 

 of success. What gives me torture fills the insect with 

 delight; what prostrates me braces the Fly. 



The road shimmers like a sheet of molten steel. From 

 the dusty, melancholy olive-trees rises a mighty, throb- 

 bing hum, the concert of the Cicadae, who sway and 

 rustle with increasing frenzy as the temperature in- 

 creases. The Cicada of the Ash adds its strident scrap- 

 ings to the single note of the Common Cicada. This is 

 the moment ! For five or six weeks, of tenest in the morn- 

 ing, sometimes in the afternoon, I set myself to explore 

 the rocky waste. 



There were plenty of the nests I wanted, but I could 

 not see a single Anthrax on their surface. Not one 

 settled in front of me to lay her egg. At most, from time 



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