A Parasite of the Maggot 



which died has been replaced by a Hving mass 

 of equal dimensions, but subdivided. The 

 price of this colony's existence is the conver- 

 sion of the chrysalis into a sort of milk-food 

 of doubtful constitution. The enormous udder 

 has been drained outright. 



You shudder when you think of that bud- 

 ding flesh nibbled bit by bit by four or five 

 hundred gormandizers; the horrified imagina- 

 tion refuses to picture the anguish suffered by 

 the tortured wretch. But is there really any 

 pain ? We have leave to doubt it. Pain is a 

 patent of nobility; it is more pronounced in 

 proportion as the sufferer belongs to a higher 

 order. In the lower ranks of animal life, it 

 must be greatly reduced, perhaps even nil, 

 especially when life, in the throes of evolution, 

 has not yet acquired a stable equilibrium. The 

 white of an egg is living matter, but endures 

 the prick of a needle without a quiver. Would 

 it not be the same with the chrysalis of the 

 Great Peacock, dissected cell by cell by hun- 

 dreds of infinitesimal anatomists? Would it 

 not be the same with the pupa of the Flesh- 

 fly? These are organisms put back into the 

 crucible, reverting to the egg-state for a sec- 

 ond birth. There is reason to believe, there- 



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