The Bumble-Bee Fly 



as with the larvae of the Wasp, it is some time 

 before they are suffocated by the petroleum- 

 fumes; and so most of them are sure to hatch. 

 I take my scissors, cut the most densely-popu- 

 lated bits from the paper wall of the nest and 

 fill a jar with them. This is the warehouse 

 from which I shall daily, for the best part of 

 the next two months, draw my supply of 

 nascent grubs. 



The Volucella's egg remains where it is, 

 with its white colour always strongly marked 

 against the brown of the background. The 

 shell wrinkles and collapses; and the fore-end 

 tears open. From it there issues a pretty little 

 white grub, thin in front, swelling slightly in 

 the rear and bristling all over with fleshy pro- 

 tuberances. The creature's papillae are set on 

 its sides like the teeth of a comb; at the rear, 

 they lengthen and spread into a fan; on the 

 back, they are shorter and arranged in four 

 longitudinal rows. The last section but one 

 carries two short, bright-red breathing-tubes, 

 standing aslant and joined to each other. The 

 fore-part, near the pointed mouth, is of a 

 darker, brownish colour. This is the biting- 

 and motor-apparatus, seen through the skin 

 and consisting of two fangs. Taken all round, 

 the grub is a pretty little thing, with its brist- 

 263 



