The Life of the Grasshopper 



disjoint, the mite is obviously incapable of 

 reaching the surface and freeing itself. 



The miner going underground puts on a 

 protective dress. The little Grasshopper 

 also, making a hole in the earth in the oppo- 

 site direction, must don an overall for emer- 

 ging from the earth; he must possess a 

 simpler, more compact transition-form, which 

 enables him to come out through the sand, 

 a delivery-shape analogous to that which the 

 Cicada and the Praying Mantis use at the 

 moment of issuing, one from his twig, the 

 other from the labyrinth of his nest. 



Reality and logic here agree. The Dec- 

 ticus, in point of fact, does not leave the egg 

 in the form in which I see him, the day after 

 his birth, hopping on the lawn ; he possesses 

 a temporary structure better-suited to the dif- 

 ficulties of the emergence. Coloured a deli- 

 cate flesh-white, the tiny creature is cased in 

 a scabbard which keeps the six legs flattened 

 against the abdomen, stretching backwards, 

 inert. In order to slip more easily under the 

 ground, he has his shanks tied up beside his 

 body. The antennas, those other irksome 

 appendages, are motionless, pressed against 

 the parcel. 



The head is very much bent against the 

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