The Botanical Instinct 
and everywhere, under the scales of the 
cracked bark, probing, feeling, choosing the 
propitious spots. Each time, an egg is laid, 
almost without protection. This done, she 
has no further anxiety. 
The grub of Cetonia floricola, breaking its 
shell, some time in August, in the depths of 
the leaf-mould, goes to feed on the flowers 
and there idly slumbers; then, an adult Rose- 
chafer, she returns to the heap of rotten 
leaves, enters it and sows her eggs in the 
hottest places, those where fermentation 
rages most fiercely. Let us not ask anything 
further from her: her talents end with this. 
So it is, in the vast majority of cases, with 
the other insects, weak or powerful, lowly 
or splendid. They all know where the eggs 
must be established, but they are profoundly 
indifferent to what will follow. It is for 
the grub to muddle through by its own 
methods. The Pine Cockchafer’s larva 
dives farther into the sand, seeking for 
tender rootlets softened by incipient decay. 
The Capricorn’s, continuing to drag the 
shell of its egg behind it, nibbles the uneat- 
able for its first mouthful, making flour of 
the dead bark and sinking a shaft that leads 
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