I take a pair of scissors and remove the conical extremity while the spinner is working at the other end. The cocoon is now wide open. The caterpillar soon turns about. It thrusts its head into the wide breach which I have just made; it seems to be exploring the outside and enquiring into the accident that has occurred. I expect to see it repair the disaster and entirely reconstruct the cone destroyed by my scissors. It does, in fact, work at it for a time; it erects a row of converging threads; then, without paying further heed to the disaster, it applies its spinnerets elsewhere and continues to thicken the cocoon. Grave doubts come to my mind: the cone built upon the breach consists of sparse filaments; it is, moreover, very flat and does not project anything like so much as the original cone. What I took at first to be a work of repair is merely a work of continuation. The caterpillar, put to the test by my tricks, has not modified the course of its work; despite the imminence of the danger, it has confined itself to the tier of threads which it would have fitted inside the preceding tier but for the snip of my scissors. I let things go on for a while; and, when the mouth has once again acquired a certain solidity, I cut it off for the second time. The insect displays the same lack of perspicacity as before, replacing the absent cone by one with an even more obtuse angle, that is to say, continuing its usual task, without any attempt at a thorough restoration, despite the extreme urgency. If the store of silk were nearly at an end, I should sympathize with the troubles of the sorely-tried caterpillar doing its best to repair its house with the scanty materials that remain at its disposal; but I see it foolishly squandering its product on the additional upholstering of a shell which may be strong enough as it is, while economizing to the point of stinginess in the matter of the fence, which, if neglected, will leave the cell and its inhabitant at the mercy of the first thief that comes along. There is no lack of silk: the spinner applies layer upon layer to the points that are unhurt; but at the breach it employs only the quantity required under ordinary conditions. This is not economy imposed by shortage; it is blind clinging to custom. And so my commiseration changes to amazement in the presence of such profound stupidity, which applies itself to the superfluous work of upholstery in a dwelling henceforth uninhabitable, instead of attending, while there is yet time, to the business of repairing the ruins.