How is this long period of solitude and captivity spent?
In wandering lazily through the thickness of the oak, in making roads whose rubbish serves as food.

The horse in Job swallows the ground in a figure of speech; the Capricorn's grub literally eats its way.

("Chafing and raging, he swalloweth the ground, neither doth he make account when the noise of the trumpet soundeth."-- Job 39, 23 (Douai version) .-- Translator's Note.) With its carpenter's gouge, a strong black mandible, short, devoid of notches, scooped into a sharp-edged spoon, it digs the opening of its tunnel.

The piece cut out is a mouthful which, as it enters the stomach, yields its scanty juices and accumulates behind the worker in heaps of wormed wood.

The refuse leaves room in front by passing through the worker.