The Life of the Grasshopper 



this crust to be broken, how is the larva to 

 come up from below ? The mother's uncon- 

 scious art has provided for that. 



The Locust at his birth finds above him, 

 not rough sand and hardened earth, but a 

 perpendicular tunnel whose solid walls keep 

 all difficulties at a distance, a road protected 

 by a little easily-penetrated foam, an ascend- 

 ing-shaft, in short, which brings the new-born 

 larva quite close to the surface. Here a 

 finger's-breadth of serious obstacle remains 

 to be overcome. 



The greater part of the emergence there- 

 fore is accomplished without effort, thanks 

 to the terminal appendage of the egg-barrel. 

 If, in my desire to follow the underground 

 work of the exodus, I experiment in glass 

 tubes, almost all the new-born larvae die, ex- 

 hausted with fatigue, under an inch of earth, 

 when I do away with the liberating append- 

 age to the shells. They duly come to light 

 if I leave the nest in its integral condition, 

 with the ascending-shaft pointing upwards. 

 Though a mechanical product of the organ- 

 ism, created without any effort of the crea- 

 ture's intelligence, the Locust's edifice, we 

 must confess, is singularly well thought 

 out. 



396 



