THE SLEEPERS 



IN the attic, where a half-finished piece of cabinet- 

 making has awaited us several months, there is some- 

 thing hanging on the wall that looks like a faded 

 black glove. It is a bat, called by our people here 

 " leathering bat." It is stiff and cold not merely 

 negatively cold, but positively so, and when we have 

 with difficulty unhooked it from its ledge it lies on 

 the hand like lead. Only a fortnight ago it was 

 flittering round the house and the cypress trees after 

 rare insects. In less than a month, an isolated mild 

 day may bring it forth again on a still more hope- 

 less quest, for the majority of insects are past waking 

 now, except in the immortal sequence of their eggs. 

 They who moved a load of bricks last week found 

 in the internal dry chinks a queen-wasp in her 

 motionless, brittle-limbed sleep from which she would 

 have almost infallibly awakened about the time of 

 gooseberry blossoms. But they found also many flies, 

 spiders, earwigs, moths, beetles, undoubtedly dead, 

 and most of them representing species of which not 

 one individual now remains alive. Perhaps there is 

 more that calls for wonder in the egg that can be 

 cased in ice, sodden with winter slush, parched, 

 frozen, broiled, and yet retain its spark of vitality 

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