104 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED 



" The egg is not deposited on the food ; it is sus- 

 pended from the summit of the dome by a thread 

 which rivals in fineness that of the web of the spider. 

 At the least breath the delicate cylinder trembles, 

 oscillates ; it recalls to me the famous pendulum 

 attached to the cupola of the Pantheon in order to 

 demonstrate the rotation of the earth. The food is 

 heaped below. 



" Second act of this marvellous spectacle : in order 

 to look on, let us open a window in cells until fortune 

 smiles on us. The larva is hatched and is already 

 growing up. Like the egg, it is suspended vertically 

 a little way from the floor of the dwelling ; but the 

 suspending thread has notably increased in length and 

 is composed of the first thread to which is added a sort 

 of a ribbon. The larva is at table; with lowered head 

 it is burrowing in the flabby body of one of the cater- 

 pillars. With the tip of a straw I touched lightly 

 the game as yet intact. The caterpillars squirmed. 

 Instantly the larva retired from the m§l^e. And how ? 

 Marvel upon marvel ! That which I had taken for a 

 flat band, for a ribbon at the lower end of the sus- 

 pending thread, is a sheath, a robe, a tube of ascension, 

 in which the larva crept up backwards. The cast skin 

 of the egg-shell, preserved cylindrical and prolonged 

 perchance by a special work of the newly hatched 



