[4] The last ventral segment of the abdomen.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
Chapter vii
THE SACRED BEETLE: THE NYMPH; THE RELEASE
The larva increases in bulk as it eats the walls of its house from the inside. Little by little, the belly of the pear is scooped out into a cell whose capacity grows in proportion to the growth of its inhabitant. Ensconced in its hermitage, supplied with board and lodging, the recluse waxes big and fat. What more is wanted? Certain hygienic duties have to be attended to, though it is no easy matter in a cramped little niche nearly all the room in which is occupied by the grub; the mortar incessantly elaborated by an excessively obliging intestine must be shot somewhere when there is no breach that needs repairing.
The larva is certainly not fastidious, but even so the bill of fare must not be too outrageous. The humblest of the humble does not return to what he or his kin have already digested. Matter from which the intestinal alembic has extracted the last available atom yields nothing more, unless we change both chemist and apparatus. What the Sheep, with her fourfold stomach, has left behind as worthless residue is an excellent thing for the grub, which also boasts a mighty paunch; but the larva’s own droppings, though no doubt pleasing in their turn to consumers of another class, are loathsome to the [[97]]grub itself. Then where shall the cumbrous refuse be stored, in a lodging of such niggardly dimensions?
I have described elsewhere the singular industry of the Cotton-bees,[1] whose larvæ, in order not to foul their provision of honey, make from their digestive dregs an elegant casket, a masterpiece of inlaid work. With the only material at its disposal in its secluded retreat, with the filth that apparently ought to be an intolerable nuisance, the grub of the Sacred Beetle produces a work less artistic than the Cotton-bee’s but much more comfortable. Let us see how it is done.
Attacking its pear at the bottom of the neck, eating steadily downwards and leaving nothing intact in its area of operations except a flimsy wall necessary for its protection, the larva obtains a free space at the back, in which its droppings are deposited without dirtying the provisions. The hatching-chamber is the first to be filled up in this way; then gradually more and more of the segment which has been eaten into follows suit, always in the round part of the pear, which consequently by degrees recovers its original compactness at the top, while the bottom becomes less and less thick. Behind the grub is the ever-increasing mass of used material; in front of it is the layer, smaller day by day, of untouched food.
Complete development is attained in four or five weeks. By that time there is in the belly of the pear an eccentric circular cavity, with walls very thick towards the neck of the pear and very flimsy at the other end, the disparity being occasioned by the method of eating and of progressive filling up. The meal is over. Next comes the furnishing [[98]]of the cell, which must be padded snugly for the tender body of the nymph, and the strengthening of one of the hemispheres, the one whose walls have been scraped by the last bites to the utmost permissible limit.
For this most important work the larva has wisely reserved a plentiful stock of cement. The trowel therefore begins to be busy. This time, the object is not to repair damage; it is to double and treble the thickness of the wall in the weaker hemisphere and to cover the whole surface with stucco which, after being polished by the movements of the grub’s body, will be soft to the touch. As this cement acquires a consistency superior to that of the original materials, the grub is at last contained within a stout casket which defies all efforts to open it with one’s fingers and is almost capable of withstanding a blow from a stone.