The Glow- Worm and Other Beetles 



ach no more burdensome than our lungs and 

 to feed even as we breathe. 



The plant partly knows this secret: it 

 draws its carbon quietly from the air, in 

 which each leaf is impregnated with the 

 wherewithal to grow tall and green. But 

 the vegetable is inactive; hence its innocent 

 life. Action calls for strongly flavoured 

 spices, won by fighting. The animal acts ; 

 therefore it kills. The highest phase, per- 

 haps, of a self-conscious intelligence, man, 

 deserving nothing better, shares with the 

 brute the tyranny of the belly as the irresist- 

 ible motive of action. 



But I have wandered too far afield. A 

 living speck, swarming in the paunch of a 

 grub, tells us of the brigandage of life. 

 How well it understands its trade as an ex- 

 terminator! In vain does the Crioceris- 

 larva take refuge in an unassailable casket: 

 its executioner makes herself so small that 

 she is able to reach it. 



Adopt such precautions as you please, you 

 pitiable grubs, pose on your sprigs in the 

 attitude of a threatening Sphinx, take refuge 

 in the mysteries of a box, arm yourself with 

 a cuirass of dung: you will none the less pay 

 your tribute in the pitiless conflict; there will 

 432 



