[5] .326 inch.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[6] ½ inch.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[7] ¾ inch.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
CHAPTER XII
SOME ANOMALIES
The anomalous is that which forms an exception to the rule, which again is based upon an aggregate of concordant facts. An insect has six legs, each ending in a finger. That is the rule. Why six legs and not some other number? Why one finger and not several? Such questions are so obviously inane that they do not even occur to our minds. The rule exists because it does exist; we note it and that is all. We remain in blissful ignorance of the reason for its existence.
Anomalies, on the other hand, make us uncomfortable and upset all our ideas. Why should there be exceptions, irregularities, contradictions of the letter of the law? Does the sign-manual of disorder leave its imprint here and there? Is the shriek of crazy discord heard amid the general harmony? This is a weighty question; and we should do well to look into it a little, though [[256]]we have little hope of ever solving the problem.
Let us, to begin with, mention a few of these infractions of the rule. Among the strangest that my chance discoveries have submitted to my scrutiny is that of the larva of the Geotrupes. When I made its acquaintance for the first time, the crippled grub had attained very nearly its full growth. One might reasonably ask one’s self whether certain hardships endured during its lifetime had not gradually brought about the weakness of the hind-legs and their abnormal position; whether, at all events, the curious deformity might not be explained by the grub’s cramped situation in a narrow corridor in the heart of its food-supply.
Today I am better-informed. The Geotrupes’ larva does not gradually become lame through straining itself; it is born crippled, there is no doubt of that. I observe its hatching. I watch the new-born grub through my magnifying-glass as it leaves the egg. The hind-legs which the adult Beetle uses as powerful squeezers for pressing the material which he has gathered and making it into sausages are for the moment reduced to the sorriest of appendages, mere useless [[257]]counterfeits. They lie withered against the larva’s back. Bent into a hook, their extremities avoid the ground and turn in towards the insect’s back, without furnishing the least support for standing. They are not legs but uncertain attempts, awkward experiments.