Part 18

But Spinipes was too engrossed to hear her. Already, swayed by instinct she was hunting, hunting an unknown quarry in the lucerne. From plant to plant, from leaf to leaf, she fluttered. Now she dropped down to earth, and ran this way and that in the green twilight tangle. Now she sped nimble-footed up a stalk. Now she took flight and skimmed above the leaves.

At last she paused, her every muscle trembling, and stared at what confronted her.

It was a flabby, green, black-headed grub, fixed slug-like on its food-plant. A trail of skeleton tracery marked where its jaws had passed, and, as it reached the border of its leaf it swung its head, and starting near midrib, gnawed yet another ribbon-strip of green.

It ceased to feed as Spinipes appeared, and rested motionless, until her weight made its leaf-platform shiver. Then it dropped silently to earth. But Spinipes reached earth almost as fast, and, quartering every inch of ground, found it and gripped it tightly. It struggled feebly as she pinned it down, and, as she stung it, shuddered. The sting was measured to the millionth part. It robbed the grub of sentient life, yet left it living. So Nature had enjoined. For every infant Spinipes, a score of live green grubs. Robbed of full life, lest struggling they should harm the egg; forbidden death, lest dying they should taint the shaft; lulled to long sleep in mercy. Of Nature's ordinance the grub knew nothing--and Spinipes knew nothing. Her task was to make store of food against the time when her gold egg should hatch. Instinctively she knew the grub was food: instinctively she paralysed its being: instinctively she laboured to transport it.

Her jaws were fastened tight behind its head. Slowly she dragged it up a stalk until blue sky alone was over her. Then, loosing her mouth-grip of it, and clasping it with all six legs, she soared on high; one long unbroken down-glide brought her to her tower. An instant's pause to shift her grip, and she had pushed the grub within the entrance. Keeping a foot-hold on it, she eased it gently downwards, until it lay beneath her egg. She turned it over on its back and propped it to the side wall, caressed her egg, and mounted to the light again.

Back to the lucerne field she flew, and, in ten minutes, reappeared, a second grub beneath her.

This, too, she propped up carefully, and so she worked throughout the day, hunting, benumbing, storing. Twelve grubs in all she brought. All twelve she packed into a single pile. A few made feeble movements, and these, for prudence' sake, she stung afresh.

She passed the night contentedly, for it had been good hunting.

The morrow's sky was wind-swept. Across it scurried wisps of grey with torn and fretted edges. These raced to catch each other, and fused in rounded velvet clouds. Mass joined to mass, and, surging slowly upwards, veiled the sun. Southwards, where earth met sky, a fine-drawn streak of blue endured, while, here and there, a rent across the veil gave passage to a radiant fan-spread beam. Once only did such radiance reach the cliff. It brought a treacherous message. Out swarmed the bees to snatch the chance of work, and out, with like intent, came Spinipes. Straight to her hunting-ground she flew, but, even as she reached it, came the rain.

For two hours she was weather-bound. At last a watery gleam of light, mirrored in every dripping leaf, enticed her from her shelter. Homeward she sped, and, reaching home, found havoc. Her tower was gone--the rain had razed it utterly--but there was worse mishap than this. Swift-scurrying on the surface of the sand were gangs of ants, and every gang was busy with a grub, one of her grubs. They pulled and pushed and shouted to each other, and worked their burdens upward to the cleft which marked their city's entrance. She poised aghast, as with a mocking spit at her, the gaping shaft disgorged another grub. Six sturdy ants came with it, and, ranging up in order, (a pair to tug, a pair to push, a pair to guide,) commenced their long ascent.

The grubs might be replaced in time--what of her precious egg? Downwards she tumbled headlong. Three grubs, the lowest of the pile, were left; her egg-- She had been in the nick of time. Her egg was there, nay more, it was uninjured. Her mother instinct told her this as, with quick trembling passes, she felt the hang and weight of it. Her mother instinct swung her round, as down the shaft she heard a scraping footfall. Even as she turned, an ant's black face peered round the lower bend.

"Out thief!" she cried. "Assassin! Bandit! Robber!"

The ant retreated hurriedly, but all that night she sat at the shaft's mouth, and barred the way below with her own body.

Next day the weather mended--a blaze of sun from an unclouded sky, and, on the sand-cliff, ecstasy of life.

Hard work in store for Spinipes! Three hours she spent in raising a fresh tower, five hours in reprovisioning her burrow. But she no longer worked alone. For others of her race had found the cliff, and other towers, twin to her own, were rising from the sand-ledge. Between them pygmy digger wasps dug shafts to match their bodies, and trident-tailed ichneumons sailed about them, and sneaking, prying, jewel flies, here, there, and everywhere on mischief bent.

She caught her old acquaintance, caught her in the act, and dragged her out, and stung her as was promised.

"I looked inside, that's all--that's really all," whimpered the culprit as she clutched the rim.

"Take that--and that--and that," said Spinipes, and drove her sharp sting home. But jewel flies are toughened folk, and this one, flung aside at last, was in full flight, and merry as a grig, within a minute of her punishment.

Daily the work grew harder. It took more time to find the grubs, since other wasps were hunting, and soon the increasing bulk of them taxed her full powers of flight. Once, as she neared the ledge, she dropped her burden. It lay where it had fallen till it died, for neither she nor other of her kind had wit to forge, or mend, a link in instincts broken chain. Once she found strange additions to her store. A human hand had robbed a neighbouring shaft and, with well-meant intention, sought to help her. Vain fancy! Here the self-same chain (to hunt--to catch--to bring--to store) was, end for end, reversed. The alien grubs were, one by one, dragged forth, and, one by one, flung headlong.

Within a week the burrow held full store, a stack of five-and-twenty grubs piled up to meet the egg. This last was at the hatching-point. The silken cord, by which it hung, had lengthened with its growth, and each hour found it closer to its food. All had gone well, and Spinipes' last task, to seal the shaft with a partition-wall, was soon accomplished. Nor did she ever see that egg again. In time the tower itself fell in--I fancy that she helped it, and in its falling, smothered the main entrance.

She sank five other curving shafts--each held an egg--and built five towers to guard them. She made five further stores of grubs; and then, her life-work ended, she crept into a cleft and died.

What of the eggs? you ask. They hatched to golden yellow grubs, which fattened on the food stores, and when, at length, their food was all consumed, they spun them silken coverlets, and changed from grubs to sleeping nymphs. They slept through autumn's dreariness, through winter's cold, through spring's soft showers, and, when at length the warmth of summer beckoned, they burst their bonds, and, working through the sand, flew forth, as those before them had flown forth. So recommenced the cycle. An æon back it was the same. An æon hence--who knows?

PICTURES ON BUTTERFLIES' WINGS (JULY)

I have already told you of the beautiful colours to be found on butterflies' wings, and how people have actually used a butterfly paintbox to make pictures with. Now I am going to show you some butterflies and moths (quite common ones all of them) which have queer little pictures on their wings ready made--real pictures I mean, faces and animals and things like that.

You may find it, at first, a little hard to see them, for they are puzzle pictures, like those you get in crackers, but once you have found the face, or whatever it may be, you won't be able to help seeing it.

I will start you with quite an easy one. Some of you, I expect, have noticed how often living creatures have a pattern on them like an open eye. This is called an "eye-marking," and is of course quite a different thing from the eye which is used for seeing with. Nearly all our butterflies have an eye-marking somewhere on their wings, and we find it in many other creatures besides butterflies. In birds, for instance (you will remember the peacock at once), and fish (next time you pass a big fishmonger's look out for a John Dory, he has a beauty) and lizards and snakes and frogs and things like that. It is not often seen on animals, though a leopard's or a jaguar's spots are something very like it.

If you look at the picture of the Emperor Moth you will see that there is a very nicely drawn eye on each of his upper wings (his real eyes are quite hidden by his little fur cape); and if you look at the caterpillar of the Elephant hawk-moth long enough, I am sure you will think that he is looking back at you, and that he does not like the look of you much.

Here, again, it is not his eyes that you see, but his eye-markings. In the first picture they are just where you would expect eyes to be, and I must explain to you why. He is called the "Elephant" caterpillar because the head-end of him ("head-end" sounds rather queer; but I think that if one may say "tail-end" one may say "head-end") tapers off very quickly from his fat body, and when he swings this end of him, as he often does, it looks like an elephant's trunk. You will see what I mean in the second picture.