The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



a glimmer of reason were to aid them. 

 Through the trelliswork, over which they 

 have so often strayed, they have seen, out- 

 side, the free soil, the promised land which 

 they want to reach. A hundred times if 

 once have they dug at the foot of the ram- 

 part. There, in vertical wells, they take up 

 their station, drowsing whole days on end 

 while unemployed. If I give them a fresh 

 Mole, they emerge from their retreat by the 

 entrance-corridor and come to hide them- 

 selves beneath the belly of the beast. The 

 burial over, they return, one here, one there, 

 to the confines of the enclosure and disap- 

 pear underground. 



Well, in two and a half months of cap- 

 tivity, despite long stays at the base of the 

 trellis, at a depth of three-quarters of an 

 inch beneath the surface, it is rare indeed 

 for a Necrophorus to succeed in circumvent- 

 ing the obstacle, in prolonging his excava- 

 tion beneath the barrier, in digging an elbow 

 and bringing it out on the other side, a 

 trifling task for these vigorous creatures. 

 Of fourteen only one succeeds in escaping. 



A chance deliverance and not premedit- 

 ated; for, if the happy event had been the 

 result of a mental combination, the other 

 prisoners, practically his equals in powers 

 346 



