The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



cares of the present. The larva, which has 

 just opened the aperture of escape, retreats 

 some distance down its gallery and, in the 

 side of the exit-way, digs itself a transforma- 

 tion-chamber more sumptuously furnished 

 and barricaded than any that I have ever 

 seen. It is a roomy niche, shaped like a 

 flattened ellipsoid, the length of which reaches 

 some eighty to a hundred millimetres. 1 The 

 two axes of the cross-section vary: the hori- 

 zontal measures twenty-five to thirty milli- 

 metres 2 ; the vertical measures only fifteen."' 1 

 This greater dimension of the cell, where the 

 thickness of the perfect insect is concerned, 

 leaves a certain scope for the action of its 

 legs when the time comes for forcing the 

 barricade, which is more than a close-fitting 

 mummy-case would do. 



The barricade in question, a door which 

 the larva builds to exclude the dangers from 

 without, is two- and even three-fold. Out- 

 side, it is a stack of woody refuse, of par- 

 ticles of chopped timber; inside, a mineral 

 hatch, a concave cover, all in one piece, of a 

 chalky white. Pretty often, but not always, 

 there is added to these two layers an inner 



1 3 to 4 inches. — Translator's Note. 



2 -975 to I > 1 7 inch. — Translator's Note. 

 8 .585 inch. — Translator's Note. 



200 



