Here comes the head, without the least difficulty: it is the pattern to which the door was built. The neck, a little wider, follows: a slight contraction frees it. Next comes the turn of the chest and the plump belly. This is a most arduous operation. The grub has no legs. It has nothing, neither hooks nor stiff bristles, that might give it a purchase. It is a soft roly-poly which has, by its own efforts, to clear the disproportionately narrow passage.
What happens inside the nut escapes me: it is hidden by the opaque shell; what I see outside is very simple and tells me of that which cannot be seen. The creature’s blood rushes from back to front; the humours of the organism change their position and accumulate in the part that has already emerged, which swells into a dropsy, attaining five or six times the diameter of the head.
In this way a large cushion is formed on the [[104]]kerb of the well, a girdle of energy which, by its dilatation and its intrinsic elasticity, gradually extricates the remaining segments, which are diminished in volume by the shifting of their fluid contents.
It is a slow and very laborious business. The grub, in its free part, bends, draws itself up and sways from side to side. We do the same when forcing a nail from side to side to extract it from its socket. The mandibles gape widely, close and gape again, with no intention of laying hold. These movements represent the yo-heave-hoes with which the exhausted creature accompanies its efforts, like those of sailors hauling on a cable.
‘Yo-heave-ho!’ says the grub; and the sausage rises a peg higher.
While the extracting pad is swelling and straining every muscle, it is evident that the part still in the shell is draining itself of its humours as far as it possibly can, making them flow into the part released. It is this that makes the wire-drawing action feasible.
One more effort of leverage from the inflated girdle; one more yawn:
‘Heave-ho!’
That has done the trick. The grub glides over the shell and drops.
One of the nuts which have just afforded me this sight was gathered on its branch a few hours before. The grub, then, would have fallen to the ground [[105]]from the height of the hazel-bush. Allowing for the proportions, such a fall would for us mean a terrible crash; for the grub, so plastic and supple, it is a trifle. It matters little to the larva whether it tumbles into the world from the top of the bush or whether it quietly changes its lodgings a little later, when the nut, fallen of its own ripeness, is lying on the ground.