The Life of the Weevil 
phosis-bladder: the fluid will become gold- 
beater’s-skin, the liquid will solidify. 
This change of condition at first suggests 
oxidation. We must abandon this idea. 
If the hardening were really the result of 
oxidization, the grub, being sticky from its 
birth and always exposed to the air, would 
long ago have been clad not in a delicate 
coat of adhesive, but in a stiff parchment 
sheath. Desiccation obviously must take 
place at the last moment and rapidly, when 
the grub is preparing to change its shape. 
Before then, this desiccation would be a 
danger; now, it is an excellent means of 
defence. 
To “fix” oil-paintings our ingenuity em- 
ploys siccatives, that is to say, ingredients 
that act upon the oil, giving it a resinous 
consistency. The Cionus likewise has its 
siccative, as the following facts prove. It 
may be that the grub was labouring to pro- 
duce this desiccating substance, by some pro- 
found change in the process of its organic 
laboratory, at the time when its poor flesh 
was quivering with feverish tremors; it may 
be that it was proceeding to spread the sic- 
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