52 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



decreases progressively from the final blind alley to the 

 starting-point. The larva entered the timber as slim as 

 a tiny bit of straw; it is to-day as thick as my finger. 

 In its three years' wanderings it always dug its gallery 

 according to the mold of its body. Evidently, the road 

 by which the larva entered and moved about cannot be 

 the Capricorn's exit-way: his immoderate antennae, his 

 long legs, his inflexible armor-plates would encounter an 

 insuperable obstacle in the narrow, winding corridor, 

 which would have to be cleared of its wormed wood and, 

 moreover, greatly enlarged. It would be less fatiguing 

 to attack the untouched timber and dig straight ahead. 

 Is the insect capable of doing so? We shall see. 



I make some chambers of suitable size in oak logs 

 chopped in two; and each of my artificial cells receives a 

 newly transformed Cerambyx, such as my provisions of 

 firewood supply, when split by the wedge, in October. 

 The two pieces are then joined and kept together with 

 a few bands of wire. June comes. I hear a scraping 

 inside my billets. Will the Capricorns come out, or not? 

 The delivery does not seem difficult to me : there is hardly 

 three-quarters of an inch to pierce. Not one emerges. 

 When all is silence, I open my apparatus. The captives, 

 from first to last, are dead. A vestige of sawdust, less 

 than a pinch of snuff, represents all their work. 



I expected more from those sturdy tools, their man- 

 dibles. But, as I have said elsewhere, the tool does not 

 make the workman. In spite of their boring-implements, 

 the hermits die in my cases for lack of skill. I subject 



