Note 1 — Chapter IV · THE TEREBINTH-LOUSE: THE MIGRATION

Soon the cross-bars of the window are peopled with vermin, jogging along with great activity, promiscuously with the winged Lice. What a to-do on the borderland of the invisible! What are they seeking, these busy atoms? What do they want? My ignorance will be their undoing. In two or three days the winged Lice die. Their part is played. That of the children is beginning. For some time yet the latter wander about, but at last nothing stirs at the window; the legion of Lice is dead. Before sweeping them away with a camel’s-hair brush, let us give a brief description of them. The new-born insects are pale green and slender in shape. Their length is not far short of a millimetre.1 Nimble and standing fairly high on their legs, they trot about busily.