The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles 



whorl is always an exact measure of their 

 actual condition. The lower whorls, those 

 of childhood, when they become too narrow, 

 are not abandoned, it is true; they become 

 lumber-rooms in which the organs of least 

 importance to active life find shelter, drawn 

 out into a slender appendage. The essen- 

 tial portion of the animal is lodged in the 

 upper story, which increases in capacity. 



The big Broken Bulimus, that lover of 

 crumbling walls and limestone rocks leaning 

 in the sun, sacrifices the graces of symmetry 

 to utility. When the lower spirals are no 

 longer wide enough, he abandons them alto- 

 gether and moves higher up, into the spacious 

 staircase of recent formation. He closes the 

 occupied part with a stout partition-wall at 

 the back; then, dashing against the sharp 

 stones, he chips off the superfluous portion, 

 the hovel not fit to live in. The broken shell 

 loses its accurate form in the process, but 

 gains in lightness. 



The Clythra does not employ the Bulimus' 

 method. It also disdains that of our dress- 

 makers, who split the overtight garment and 

 let in a piece of suitable width between the 

 edges of the opening. To break the jar 

 when it becomes too small would be a wilful 

 waste of material; to split it lengthwise and 

 456 



