THE ANTHRAX FLY 



earlier, when the Bee-grub was eating her store of honey, 

 things would surely have gone badly with it. The 

 victim, feeling herself bled to death by that ravenous 

 kiss, would have protested with much wriggling of body 

 and grinding of mandibles. The intruder would have 

 perished. But at the hour chosen so wisely by it all 

 danger is over. Enclosed in her silken sheath, the larva 

 is in the torpid state that precedes her transformation 

 into a Bee. Her condition is not death, but neither is it 

 life. So there is no sign of irritation when I stir her with 

 a needle, nor when the Anthrax-grub attacks her. 



There is another marvellous point about the meal of 

 the Anthrax-grub. The Bee-grub remains alive until the 

 very end. Were she really dead it would, in less than 

 twenty-four hours, turn a dirty-brown colour and de- 

 compose. But during the whole fortnight that the meal 

 lasts, the butter-colour of the victim continues unaltered, 

 and there is no sign of putrefaction. Life persists un- 

 til the body is reduced to nothing. And yet, if I myself 

 give her a wound, the whole body turns brown and soon 

 begins to rot. The prick of a needle makes her decom- 

 pose. A mere nothing kills it; the atrocious draining of 

 its strength does not. 



The only explanation I can suggest is this, and it is no 

 more than a suggestion. Nothing but fluids can be 

 drawn by the sucker of the Anthrax through the unpierced 

 skin of the Bee-grub : no part of the breathing-apparatus 



[255] 



