The Crioceres 



life, a pigmy among pigmies appears, charged 

 with the express duty of exterminating an 

 insect which is protected first by the casket 

 of the berry and next by the shell, the under- 

 ground work of the grub. To eat the 

 Twelve-spotted Crioceris is its mission in life, 

 its special function. When and how does it 

 deliver its attack? I do not know. 



At any rate, proud of her vocation and 

 finding life sweet, the Chalcid curls her an- 

 tennae into a crook and waves them to and 

 fro: she rubs her tarsi together, a sign of 

 satisfaction; she dusts her belly. I can 

 hardly see her with the naked eye; and yet 

 she is an agent of the universal extermina- 

 tion, a wheel in the implacable machine 

 which crushes life as in a wine-press. 



The tyranny of the belly turns the world 

 into a robber's cave. Eating means killing. 

 Distilled in the alembic of the stomach, the 

 life destroyed by slaughter becomes so much 

 fresh life. Everything is melted down 

 again, everything has a fresh beginning in 

 death's insatiable furnace. 



Man, from the alimentary point of view, 

 is the chief brigand, consuming everything 

 that lives or might live. Here is a mouth- 

 ful of bread, the sacred food. It represents 

 a certain number of grains of wheat which 

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