The Woman in the Dunes - Machi Abe [3]
From then on he began to manifest an interest in sand. And soon this interest bore fruit. One day in the dry river bed near his house he discovered a smallish light-pink insect which resembled a double-winged garden beetle (Cicindela japonica Motschulsky). It is common knowledge, of course, that the garden beetle presents many variations in color and design. But the form of the front legs, on the other hand, varies very little. In fact, the front legs of the sheath-wing beetle constitute an important criterion for its classification. And the second joint on the front legs of the insect that had caught the man’s eye did indeed have striking characteristics.
Generally speaking, the front legs of the beetle family are black, slender, and agile. However, the front legs of this one seemed to be covered with a stout sheath; they were round, almost chubby, and cream-colored. Of course, they may have been smeared with pollen. One might even assume some sort of condition—the presence of hair, for example—which would cause the pollen to adhere to the legs. If his observations were correct he had certainly made a most important discovery.
But unfortunately he had let it escape. He had been too excited, and besides the beetle’s pattern of flight was confusing. It flew away, and then as if to say “Catch me!” it turned and waited. When he approached it cautiously it flew away again, turned around, and waited. Mercilessly tantalizing, its course had at last led it to a clump of grass into which it disappeared.
The man was completely captivated by the beetle with the yellowish front legs.
When he had observed the sandy soil, it seemed to him that his guess was correct. Actually, the beetle family is representative of desert insects. According to one theory, their strange pattern of flight is a snare for the purpose of enticing small animals away from their nests. Prey such as mice and lizards are lured out in spite of themselves, wander into the desert, and collapse from hunger and fatigue. Their bodies then become the beetles’ food. These beetles have the elegant Japanese name of “letter-bearer” and present graceful features, but actually they have sharp jaws and are ferocious and cannibalistic by nature. But whether or not his theory was correct, the man was unquestionably beguiled by the mysterious pattern of the beetle’s flight.
And his interest in sand, which was the condition for the beetle’s existence, could not help but grow. He began to read everything he could about it. And as his research progressed he realized that sand was a very interesting substance. For example, opening to the article on sand in the encyclopedia, he found the following:
SAND: an aggregate of rock fragments. Sometimes including loadstone, tinstone, and more rarely gold dust. Diameter: 2 to 1/16 mm.
A very clear definition indeed. In short, then, sand came from fragmented rock and was intermediate between clay and pebbles. But simply calling it an intermediate substance did not provide a really satisfactory explanation. Why was it that isolated deserts and sandy terrain came into existence through the sifting out of only the sand from soil in which clay, sand, and stones were thoroughly mixed together? If a true intermediate substance were involved, the erosive action of wind and water would necessarily produce any number of intermingling intermediate forms in the range between rock and clay. However, there are in fact only three forms that can be clearly distinguished from one another: stones, sand, and clay. Furthermore, sand is sand wherever it is; strangely enough, there is almost no difference in the size of the grains whether they come from the Gobi Desert or from the beach at Enoshima. The size of the grains shows very little variation and follows a Gaussian distribution curve with a true mean of 1/8 mm.
One commentary gave a very simple explanation of the decomposition of land through the erosive action of wind and water: the lighter particles were progressively blown away over great distances.