It may well be that the abundance of Dermestes, an easy prey, was not the motive which attracted the Reduvii to the butcher’s garret. Elsewhere, out of doors, there is no lack of game, in great variety and no less appreciated. Why do the Bugs prefer to gather here? I suspect that they wish to establish a family. The laying-season cannot be far away; and the Reduvius has come with the particular object of providing food and lodging for her offspring. In fact, at the end of June I obtain the first eggs in my jars. For a fortnight the Bugs continue to lay abundantly. A few mothers, reared [[228]]separately, enable me to estimate their fecundity. I count up thirty to forty eggs for each mother.
Here we no longer see the orderliness dear to the Forest-bugs, who arrange their eggs on a leaf so methodically, in rows of beads. Far from representing an extremely accurate piece of work, the Masked Bug’s batch of eggs is strewn, clumsily, at random. The eggs are isolated, adhering neither to one another nor to their support. In my rearing-jars they are scattered over the surface of the sand. Granular specks of which the mother has taken no care whatever, not even troubling to fasten them anywhere, they roll hither and thither, at the least breath of air. A plant is not more heedless of its seeds, which go where the wind blows them.
These greatly neglected eggs are nevertheless not without beauty of form; they are oval, amber-red, smooth and glossy and about a millimetre[6] in length. Near one of the ends there is a fine, dark, circular line, marking a sort of cap. The Forest-bug’s egg has taught us the meaning of this circle. [[229]]It is the line along which the lid of the casket will open. We have before us for the second time the tiny miracle of an egg shaped like a casket, which, on hatching, opens without breaking, by the fall of a little lid which is thrust back by the tiny creature in the act of birth.
If I can manage to see how the moveable cap is lifted, I shall obtain the most interesting detail of the Masked Bug’s history; I shall have the equivalent of the young Forest-bug bursting the ceiling of his shell by means of a sharp-angled mitre actuated by the hydraulic pulsations of the head. Let us stint neither time nor patience: the exodus of a Bug from his egg is a most notable sight.
If the problem has its attractive side, it also presents difficulties. You have to be on the spot just at the very moment when the lid gives way, which entails a wearisome vigilance. You also want plenty of light; and it must be daylight, or the refinements of this very delicate operation would escape us. The habits of the Reduvius give me cause to fear that the eggs may be hatched at night: [And the future will teach me [[230]]only too well how fully my fears are founded.] No matter: we will not give in. Perhaps fortune will smile upon me. And, lens in hand, for a fortnight, at all hours, from morning to night, I keep watch over a hundred eggs which I have divided among several glass tubes.
In the Forest-bug’s egg the approach of hatching is announced by a black line in the form of a broad arrow, or reversed anchor, which appears not far from the lid and is no other than the liberating mechanism. The tiny beast covers its head with its pointed mitre. Here there is nothing of the sort. From first to last, the Masked Bug’s egg retains its uniform amber colouring, without any sign of an inner lock.
Meanwhile, by the middle of July, the hatchings are becoming numerous. Every morning I find in my tubes a collection of tiny open pots, unbroken and amber-coloured as at the beginning. The lid, a concave dome of exquisite accuracy, is lying on the sand beside the empty egg-shell; sometimes it remains hanging from the edge of the orifice. The young Bugs, pretty little snow-white creatures, are gambolling nimbly [[231]]amidst the untenanted pots. I always come too late; what I wanted to see by sunlight is over.
As I suspected, the opening of the lid is effected in the darkness of the night. Alas, for want of sufficient light the solution of the problem which interests me so greatly will escape me! The Reduvius will keep her secret; I shall see nothing.… But yes, I do see something; for perseverance has unexpected resources. A week full of failures has already gone by, when, unexpectedly, in the brilliant light of nine o’clock in the morning, a few late-comers suddenly begin to open their boxes. Had the house caught fire just then, I doubt whether I should have stirred a limb. The sight held me rooted to the floor. Let the reader judge for himself.
Unprovided with the thread-like rivets employed by the Pentatoma, the Reduvius’ lid adheres to the shell by its mere position and a perfect fit. I see it lifting at one side and hinging on the other with a slowness that defies the magnifying powers of the lens. What is happening in the egg seems to be a long and laborious process. But the [[232]]lid opens wider; and through the chink I see something glistening. This is an iridescent pellicle, which protrudes, and, as it does so, pushes back the lid. Now a spherical blister emerges from the shell, gradually growing larger, like a soap-bubble blown from a straw. Pushed farther and farther back by the expansion of this bladder, the lid falls off.
Then the bomb explodes: that is to say, the capsule, inflated beyond the limits of its resistance, bursts open at the top. This envelope, an extremely thin membrane, usually adheres to the edge of the orifice, where it forms a high white rim. At other times the explosion detaches it and shoots it out of the shell. Under these conditions it is a delicate goblet, hemispherical, with torn edges, and with its lower part continued by a fine, twisted stem.