The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



The loud gobbling of the harassed birds had 

 told her of our wicked pranks. She would 

 run up armed with a whip. But we had 

 good legs in those days! And we had a 

 good laugh too, behind the hedges, which 

 favoured our retreat! 



O delightful days when we put the 

 Turkeys to sleep, can I recover the skill 

 which I then possessed? To-day it is no 

 longer the playful trick of a schoolboy; it is 

 a matter of serious research. I happen to 

 have the very subject that I need: a Turkey- 

 hen, doomed soon to be the victim of our 

 Christmas merry-making. I repeat with her 

 the method of manipulation which I em- 

 ployed so successfully on the banks of the 

 Aveyron. I tuck her head well under her 

 wing and, molding it in this attitude with 

 both hands, I rock the bird gently up and 

 down for a couple of minutes. 



The strange effect is produced; my child- 

 hood's manoeuvres obtained no better result. 

 Laid on the ground, on her side and left to 

 herself, my patient is a lifeless bundle. One 

 would think her dead, if a slight rise and fall 

 of the plumage did not reveal the breathing. 

 She looks really like a dead bird which, in 

 a last convulsion, had drawn its chilled feet, 

 with their shrivelled toes, under its belly. 



394 



