“There,” answered Nelson, pointing with a twig. He was a small chap, grayish-black in color, with what Nelson declared to be the Morse code written down his back. He was trying to get somewhere, just where wasn’t apparent, for no sooner did he make headway in one direction than he changed his route and started off in another. He was laughably awkward, and bumped into everything in his path.
“Bet you he’s been eating toadstools,” said Tom, “and is very ill.”
“I’ve named him ‘Tom,’” said Nelson soberly.
“Think he looks like me?” asked Tom.
“N-no, but he walks like you.”
“Huh! Look at the idiot, will you?” The beetle had encountered an acorn at least ten times his size and was vainly striving to shove it out of his path. Again and again he stood on his hind legs and tried to move the acorn, acting in a most absurdly exasperated way.
“He’s getting terribly mad,” said Nelson. “It doesn’t occur to him, I suppose, that he can walk around it. Let’s take it out of his way; if we don’t, he’ll stay there all day and never get home to his family.” So the acorn was flicked aside with Nelson’s twig. But the effect on the beetle was not what they had expected. He immediately began to run around very hurriedly in a tiny circle as though trying to make himself dizzy.
“Bet you he’s wondering where the acorn went to,” said Tom. “Look at the idiot! Hey, get up there!” And Tom, borrowing Nelson’s twig, gave the beetle a shove. Apparently that was just what he needed. After a moment, spent perhaps in gathering his thoughts, he started off in a new direction and covered six inches of ground, knocking into every blade of grass and every tiny obstruction on the way. Then, for no apparent reason, he crawled in at one end of a dried and curled leaf and proceeded to try and get out again by climbing the sides. As the sides curved inward he had a terrible time of it. Six times he fell onto his back, all legs waving wildly, and had great difficulty in regaining his equilibrium. At last, quite by accident, he got too near one end of the leaf and tumbled out. Then he took up his journey again.
“I don’t think insects have much sense,” said Tom disgustedly.