The woodland bug, whose egg is a masterpiece, invents I know not what magical centre-bit, what curious piece of locksmith's work, in order to unlock its natal casket and achieve its liberty. For days the grasshopper "butts its head against the roughness of the soil, and wars upon the pebbles; by dint of frantic wriggling it escapes from the womb of the earth, bursts its old coat, and is transfigured, opening its eyes to the light, and leaping for the first time." The Bombyx of the pine-tree "decks its brow with points of diamond, spreads its wings, and erects its plumes, and shakes out its fleece to fly only in the darkness, to wed the same night, and to die on the morrow." What marvellous inventions, what machinery, what incredible contrivances, "in order that a tiny fly can emerge from under ground"! The Anthrax assumes a panoply of trepans, an assortment of gimlets and knives, harpoons and grapnels, in order to perforate its ceiling of cement; then the lugubrious black fly appears, all moist as yet with the humours of the laboratory of life, steadies itself upon its trembling legs, dries its wings, quits its suit of armour, and takes flight." The blue-fly, buried in the depth of the sand, "cracks its barrel-shaped coffin," and splits its mask, in order to disinter itself; the head divides into two halves, between which we see emerging and disappearing by turns a monstrous tumour, which comes and goes, swells and shrivels, palpitates, labours, lunges, and retires, thus compressing and gradually undermining the sand, until at last the newborn fly emerges from the depth of the catacombs. (13/1.) Certain young spiders, in order to emancipate themselves, to conquer space, and disperse themselves about the world, resort to an ingenious system of aviation. They gain the highest point of the thicket, and release a thread, which, seized by the wind, carries them away suspended. Each shines like a point of light against the foliage of the cypresses. There is a continuous stream of tiny passengers, leaping and descending in scattered sheaves under the caresses of the sun, like atomic projectiles, like the fountain of fire at a pyrotechnic display. What a glorious departure, what an entry into the world! Gripping its aeronautic thread, the insect ascends in apotheosis! (13/2.) But if all are called all are not chosen. "How many can move only at the greatest peril under the rugged earth, proceeding from shock to shock, in the harsh womb of universal life, and, arrested by a grain of sand, succumb half-way"! There are others whom slower metamorphoses condemn to vegetate still longer in the subterranean night, before they are permitted to assume their festival attire, and share in their turn in the gladness of creation.