Yes, lanam fecit. The Psyche does not really work the wool on the distaff; but at least she bequeathes to her sons her own fleece converted into a heap of wadding. Yes, domi mansit. She never leaves her house, not even for her wedding, not even for the purpose of laying her eggs. We have seen how, after receiving the visit of the male, the shapeless Moth, that uncouth sausage, retreats to the back of her case and withdraws into her chrysalid slough, which she fills exactly, just as though she had never left it. The eggs are in their place then and there; they occupy the regulation sack favoured by the various Psyches. Of what use would a laying be now? Strictly speaking, there is none, in fact; that is to say, the eggs do not leave the mother’s womb. The living pouch which has engendered them keeps them within itself. Soon this bag loses its moisture by evaporation; it dries up and at the same time remains sticking to the chrysalid wrapper, that firm support. Let us open the thing. What does the magnifying-glass show us? A few trachean threads, lean bundles of muscles, nervous ramifications, in short, the relics of a form of vitality reduced to its simplest expression. Taken all around, very nearly nothing. The rest of the contents is a mass of eggs, an agglomeration of germs numbering close upon three hundred. In a word, the insect is one enormous ovary, assisted by just so much as enables it to perform its functions. CHAPTER X THE PSYCHES: THE CASES The hatching of the eggs takes place in the first fortnight of July. The little grubs measure about one twenty-fifth of an inch. Their head and the upper part of the first thoracic segment are a glossy black, the next two segments brownish and the rest of the body a pale amber. Sharp, lively little creatures, who run about with short, quick steps, they swarm all over the spongy, hairy tissue resulting from the cast-off clothing of the eggs. The books tell me that the little Psyches begin by eating up their mother: a loathsome banquet for which the said books must accept responsibility. I see nothing of the sort; and I do not even understand how the idea arose. The mother bequeaths to her sons her case, whose straws are searched for wadding, the material of the first coat; out of her chrysalid slough and her skin she makes them a two-fold shelter for the hatching-time; with her down she prepares a defensive barricade for them and a place wherein to wait before emerging. Thus all is given, all spent with a view to the future. Save for some thin, dry strips which my lens can only with difficulty distinguish, there is nothing left that could provide a cannibal feast for so numerous a family.