For the rest, they are of a very stay-at-home habit. Far from straying at random over the abundant food-supply, in which they might well sample the best and pick their mouthfuls, they remain encamped within the narrow area of the place where they were hatched. Moreover, despite their corpulence, they are extremely frugal, to such a point that, excepting the inhabited patches, the floral head retains its full vigour and ripens its seeds as usual. In this blazing summer weather, three or four days are enough for the hatching. If the young grub is at some distance from the seeds, it reaches them by slipping along the hairs, a few of which it gathers on its way. If it is born in contact with a seed, it remains in its native cup, for the desired point is attained. Its food consists, in fact, of the few surrounding seeds, five or six, hardly more; and even so the greater number are only in part consumed. True, when it has grown stronger, the larva bites deeper and digs in the fleshy receptacle a little pit that will serve as the foundation of its future cell. The waste products of nutrition are pushed backwards, where they set in a hard lump, held in position by the palisade of the hairs. A modest scale of diet, when all is said: half a dozen unripe seeds and a few mouthfuls taken from the cake consisting of the receptacle. These peaceful creatures must derive singular benefit from their food to acquire such plumpness so cheaply. An undisturbed and temperate diet is better than an uneasy feast. Two or three weeks devoted to these pleasures of the table and our grub has become a fat baby. Then the blissful consumer becomes a craftsman. The placid gratification of the belly is followed by the worries of the future. We have to build ourselves a castle in which to effect the metamorphosis. From all around it the grub collects hairs, which it chops into fragments of different lengths. It places them in position with the tip of its mandibles, butts them with its head and presses them by rolling them with its rump. Without further manipulation this would remain a crazy protection, constantly collapsing and forcing the recluse to make continual repairs. But the builder is thoroughly acquainted with the eccentric ways of its fellow-craftsmen on the echinops; it possesses a cement-factory in the end of its intestine. If I rear it in a glass tube with a piece of its native artichoke, I see it from time to time curving itself into a ring and gathering with its teeth a drop of a whitish, sticky substance which the hinder part of the grub sparingly provides. The glue is instantly spread hither and thither, swiftly, for it sets quickly. Thus the hairy particles are bound together and what was flimsy felt becomes a solid fabric.