The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



This paste, when placed on hot charcoal, 

 sifted under the lens and deprived of its part- 

 icles of dead bodies, becomes much darker, 

 is covered with shiny bubbles and sends forth 

 puffs of that acrid smoke by which we so 

 readily recognize burnt animal matter. The 

 whole mass of the kernel, therefore, is 

 strongly impregnated with sanies. 



Treated in the same manner, the wrapper 

 also turns black, but not to the same extent; 

 it hardly smokes; it does not become covered 

 with jet-black bubbles; lastly, it would not 

 anywhere contain bits of carcase similar to 

 those in the central kernel. In both cases, 

 the residue after calcination is a fine, red- 

 dish clay. 



This brief analysis tells us all about the 

 table of Phantfus Milon. The fare served 

 to the grub is a sort of meat-pie. The 

 sausage-meat consists of a mince of all that 

 the two scalpels of the forehead and the 

 toothed knives of the fore-legs have been able 

 to remove from the corpse : hair and down, 

 small crushed bones, strips of flesh and skin. 

 Now hard as brick, the thickening of this 

 mincemeat was originally a paste of fine clay 

 steeped in the liquor of corruption. Lastly, 

 the light crust of our meat-pies is here re- 

 presented by a covering of the same clay, 

 254 



