72 FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



This girdle is the starting-point and support of the whole 

 work. To lengthen it, and enlarge it into a complete garment, 

 the grub has only to fix to it the scraps of pith which the 

 mandibles never cease tearing from the case. These scraps 

 or pellets are sometimes placed at the top, sometimes at the 

 bottom or side, but they are always fixed at the fore-edge. 

 No device could be better contrived than this garland, first 

 laid out flat and then buckled like a belt round the body. 



Once this start is made the weaving goes on well. Gradually 

 the girdle grows into a scarf, a waistcoat, a short jacket, and 

 lastly a sack, and in a few hours it is complete a conical 

 hood or cloak of magnificent whiteness. 



Thanks to his mother's care the little grub is spared the 

 perils of roaming about in a state of nakedness. If she did 

 not place her family in her old case they might have great 

 difficulty in clothing themselves, for straws and stalks rich 

 in pith are not found everywhere. And yet, unless they died 

 of exposure, it appears that sooner or later they would find 

 some kind of garment, since they seem ready to use any 

 material that comes to hand. I have made many experi- 

 ments with new-born grubs in a glass tube. 



From the stalks of a sort of dandelion they scraped, without 

 the least hesitation, a superb white pith, and made it into a 

 delicious white cloak, much finer than any they would have 

 obtained from the remains of their mother's clothes. An 

 even better garment was woven from some pith taken from 

 the kitchen-broom. This time the work glittered with little 

 sparks, like specks of crystal or grains of sugar. It was my 

 manufacturers' masterpiece. 



The next material I offered them was a piece of blotting- 

 paper. Here again my grubs did not hesitate : they lustily 

 scraped the surface and made themselves a paper coat. Indeed, 

 they were so much pleased with this that when I gave them 

 their native case they scorned it, preferring the blotting-paper. 



To others I gave nothing at all. Not to be baffled, how- 

 ever, they hastened to scrape the cork of the tube and break 



