The little that the breach allows us to see—for it is pretty quickly repaired—tells [[33]]us what goes on under ordinary conditions. Without the aid of sight, we see the grub evacuating at intervals and renewing its store of cement; we can follow it as it gathers the clod with the tips of its mandibles, squeezing it with its legs, dividing it to its liking and spreading it with its mouth and forehead on the weak spots of the wall. A rolling motion of the rump gives it a polish. Without borrowing any extraneous materials, the builder finds within itself the building-stones of its edifice.
A similar stercoral talent is the portion of other big-bellied larvæ, which wear around their abdomen a wide brown sash, the insignia of their craft. With the contents of their intestinal wallet they build the hut in which metamorphosis takes place. All tells us of the high economy which knows the secret of turning the abject into the decent and of producing from a box of ordure the Golden Cetonia, the guest of the roses and the glory of the spring. [[34]]
[1] One of the wild Bees. Cf. The Mason-bees, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. viii; and Bramble-bees and Others, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. ii., iv. and vii.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[2] A parasitic Bee. Cf. The Mason-bees: chap. viii.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[3] For these wild bees, cf. Bramble-bees and others: passim.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[4] Drone-flies.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[5] Cf. The Hunting Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. vii.; and The Mason-Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. ix and x.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[6] Cf. The Life of the Caterpillar, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xiv.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[7] The Cetonia is also known as the Rose-chafer (C. aurata). Cf. More Hunting Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: Translator’s Note. [↑]