The insect is now standing erect, and therefore the flexible wings are in the right position. They are no longer curved backwards like the petals of a flower, they are no longer upside down; but they still look shabby and insignificant. All that we see is a few wrinkles, a few winding furrows, which tell us that the stumps are bundles of cunningly folded material, arranged so as to take up as little space as possible. Very gradually they expand, so gradually that their unfolding cannot be seen even under the microscope. The process continues for three hours. Then the wings and wing-cases stand up on the Locust’s back like a huge set of sails, sometimes colourless, sometimes pale-green, like the Cicada’s wings at the beginning. One is amazed at their size when one thinks of the paltry bundles that represented them at first. How could so much stuff find room there? The fairy tale tells us of a grain of hempseed that contained the under-linen of a princess. Here is a grain that is even more astonishing. The one in the story took years and years to sprout and multiply, till at last it yielded the hemp required for the trousseau: the Locust’s tiny bundle supplies a sumptuous set of sails in three hours. They are formed of exquisitely fine gauze, a network of innumerable tiny bars. In the wing of the larva we can see only a few uncertain outlines of the future lace-work. There is nothing to suggest the marvellous fabric whose every mesh will have its form and place arranged for it, with absolute exactness. Yet it is there, as the oak is inside the acorn. There must be something to make the matter of the wing shape itself into a sheet of gauze, into a labyrinth of meshes. There must be an original plan, an ideal pattern which gives each atom its proper place. The stones of our buildings are arranged in accordance with the architect’s plan; they form an imaginary building before they exist as a real one. In the same way a Locust’s wing, that sumptuous piece of lace emerging from a miserable sheath, speaks to us of another Architect, the Author of the plans which Nature must follow in her labours. CHAPTER XVI THE ANTHRAX FLY I A STRANGE MEAL I made the acquaintance of the Anthrax in 1855 at Carpentras, when I was searching the slopes of which I have already told you, the slopes beloved of the Anthophora-bees. Her curious pupa, so powerfully equipped to force an outlet for the perfect insect, which is incapable of the least effort, seemed worthy of investigation. For that pupa is armed with a ploughshare in front, a trident at its tail, and rows of harpoons on its back, with which to rip open the Osmia-bee’s cocoon and break through the hard crust of the hill-side.