The Sacred Beetle and Others 



was she informed on the ground-floor of 

 what was happening in the attic? How 

 did she know that a larva up there was 

 calling for her assistance? The babe in dis- 

 tress screams and the nurse comes running up. 

 (The grub says nothing; it makes no sound. 

 Its desperate gesticulations are not accom- 

 panied by any noise. And the watcher hears 

 this mute appeal. She notices the silence, 

 she sees the invisible. I am bewildered, 

 every one would be bewildered by the mystery 

 of these perceptions which are so foreign 

 to our nature and which " topsy turvy the 

 understanding," as Montaigne would say. 

 Let us pass on. 



I have described elsewhere ^ the brutality 

 with which the Bee, that most gifted of in- 

 sects, treats the eggs of her fellows. Osmiae, 

 Chalicodomae and others perpetrate atroci- 

 ties at times. In a moment of vengeance or 

 of that inexplicable aberration which occurs 

 after the laying is finished, a sister's egg, 

 savagely torn from the cell with the pincers 

 of the mandibles, is flung into the dust-bin. 

 The thing is pitilessly crushed, is ripped open, 

 is even eaten. How different from the good- 

 natured Copris! 



1 Cf. The Mason-hees and Bramble-bees and Others: 

 passim. — Translator's Note. 



232 



