An incomplete observation, wrongly interpreted, sets the story going. Then come the compilers, who faithfully hand down the legend, the unsound fruit of the imagination; and error, confirmed by repetition, becomes an article of faith. What, for example, was not reported of the Sacred Beetle and her pill, the Necrophorus [56] and her work of burial, the Hunting Wasp and her game, the Cicada and her well, before the truth was arrived at? The real, which is perfectly simple, and supremely beautiful, too often escapes us, giving way before the imaginary, which is less troublesome to acquire. Instead of going back to the facts and seeing for ourselves, we blindly follow tradition. To-day no one would write a few lines on the Pentatomæ without dragging in the Swedish naturalist’s doubtful story, and no one, as far as I know, has mentioned the genuine marvels connected with the mechanism of the hatching. What can De Geer have seen? The observer’s high standing gives us confidence; none the less, I shall take the liberty of experimenting in my turn before accepting the master’s statements. The Grey Bug, the subject of my story, is less frequent than the others in my neighbourhood: on the rosemaries in the enclosure, my field of exploration, I find three or four which, when placed under glass, do not give me any eggs. The set-back does not seem irreparable: what the grey refuses to reveal the green or the yellow or the red-and-black striped—one and all of similar formation and like habits—will show me. In species so closely akin, the family cares of the one must, in all but a few details, be reproduced in the others. Let us then note how the four Pentatomæ reared in captivity behave in the matter of their new-born young. Their unanimous testimony will convince us. At the very outset I was struck by a fact which disagreed with what I had a right to expect in a future Hen leading her Chicks. The mother pays no attention to her eggs. When the last has been laid in its place at the extreme end of the last row, she makes off, heedless of what she has left behind her. She does not trouble about it any more, does not return to it. If the hazards of her wanderings lead her up to it, she steps on the heap, crosses it and passes on, indifferent. The evidence leaves nothing to be desired: the coming upon a patch of eggs is an incident of no interest to the mother. We must not attribute this negligence to the aberrations which may possibly occur in a state of captivity. In the perfect liberty of the fields I have come across many batches of eggs, perhaps including those of the Grey Bug; never have I seen the mother standing by her eggs, which she would have to do if her family required protection as soon as hatched.