The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



Provencal says, but even more crudely than 

 in my translation: 



" If you look for dung, the Donkeys be- 

 come constipated ! " 



At last I possess the Mouse of my dreams ! 

 She comes to me from that refuge, furnished 

 with a truss of straw, in which official charity 

 grants a day's hospitality to the pauper wan- 

 dering over the face of the fertile earth, 

 from that municipal hostel whence one in- 

 evitably issues covered with Lice. O Reau- 

 mur, 1 who used to invite marchionesses to see 

 your caterpillars change their skins, what 

 would you have said of a future disciple 

 conversant with such squalor as this? Per- 

 haps it is well that we should not be ig- 

 norant of it, so that we may have compassion 

 with that of the beast. 



The Mouse so greatly desired is mine. 

 I place her upon the centre of the brick. 

 The grave-diggers under the wire cover are 

 now seven in number, including three fe- 

 males. All have gone to earth; some are 

 inactive, close to the surface; the rest are 

 busy in their crypts. The presence of the 



1 Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757), the 

 inventor of the Reaumur thermometer and author of 

 Mimoires pour servir a I'histoire naturelle des insectes 

 (1734-1742). — Translator's Note. 



320 



