Its task is soon done. Here comes one of the emigrants, showing its head with the great eyes and lifting the broken fibres of the aperture. It works its way farther and farther out, with a progressive movement so slow that the lens does not easily perceive it. In half an hour at soonest, the boat-shaped object appears entirely; but it is still caught by its hinder end in the exit-hole. The emergence-jacket splits without further delay; and the creature sheds its skin from front to back. It is now the normal larva, the only one that Réaumur knew. The cast slough forms a suspensory thread, expanding into a little cup at its free end. In this cup is contained the tip of the abdomen of the larva, which, before dropping to the ground, treats itself to a sun-bath, hardens itself, kicks about and tries its strength, swinging indolently at the end of its life-line. This “little Flea,” as Réaumur calls it, first white, then amber, is at all points the larva that will dig into the ground. The antennæ, of fair length, are free and wave about; the legs work their joints; those in front open and shut their claws, which are the strongest part of them. I know hardly any more curious sight than that of this miniature gymnast hanging by its hinder-part, swinging at the least breath of wind and making ready in the air for its somersault into the world. The period of suspension varies. Some larvæ let themselves drop in half an hour or so; others remain for hours in their long-stemmed cup; and some even wait until the next day. Whether quick or slow, the creature’s fall leaves the cord, the slough of the primary larva, swinging. When the whole brood has disappeared, the orifice of the cell is thus hung with a cluster of short, fine threads, twisted and rumpled, like dried white of egg. Each opens into a little cup at its free end. They are very delicate and ephemeral relics, which you cannot touch without destroying them. The slightest wind soon blows them away. Let us return to the larva. Sooner or later, without losing much time, it drops to the ground, either by accident or of its own accord. The infinitesimal creature, no bigger than a Flea, has saved its tender, budding flesh from the rough earth by swinging on its cord. It has hardened itself in the air, that luxurious eiderdown. It now plunges into the stern realities of life. I see a thousand dangers ahead of it. The merest breath of wind can blow the atom here, on the impenetrable rock, or there, on the ocean of a rut where a little water stagnates, or elsewhere, on the sand, the starvation region where nothing grows, or again on a clay soil, too tough for digging. These fatal expanses are frequent; and so are the gusts that blow one away in this windy season which has already set in unpleasantly by the end of October.