falls the desperate duty, which shows no mercy to the nascent
flesh; to the adult insect the joy of resting in the sun. This
transposition of functions has as its result a well sinker's
equipment in the nymph, an eccentric, complicated equipment which
nothing suggested in the larva and which nothing recalls in the
perfect insect. The set of tools includes an assortment of
plowshares, gimlets, hooks and spears and of other implements that
are not found in our trades nor named in our dictionaries. Let us
do our best to describe the strange piercing gear.

In a fortnight at most, the Anthrax has consumed the Chalicodoma
grub, whereof naught remains but the skin, gathered into a white
granule. By the time that July is nearly over, it becomes rare to
find any nurslings left upon their nurses. From this period until
the following May, nothing fresh happens. The Anthrax retains its
larval shape without any appreciable change and lies motionless in
the mason bee's cocoon, beside the pellet remains. When the fine
days of May arrive, the grub shrivels and casts its skin and the
nymph appears, fully clad in a stout, reddish, horny hide.

The head is round and large, separated from the thorax by a
strangulated furrow, crowned on top and in front with a sort of
diadem of six hard, sharp, black spikes, arranged in a semicircle
whose concave side faces downward. These spikes decrease slightly
in length from the summit to the ends of the arch. Taken
together, they suggest the radial crowns which we see the Roman
emperors of the Decadence wear on the medals. This six-fold
plowshare is the chief excavating tool. Lower down, on the median
line, the instrument is finished off with a separate group of two
small black spikes, placed close together.