The Life of the Fly 



bodies with a coat of fine, soft hairs which is 

 invisible except under the lens. The head con- 

 sists of a little knob much smaller in diameter 

 than the body. In this head, the microscope 

 reveals mandibles consisting of fine spikes of 

 a tawny red, which spread into a wide, 

 colourless base. Deprived of any indentation, 

 incapable of chewing anything between their 

 awl-shaped ends, these two tools serve at best 

 to fix the grub slightly at some point of the 

 fostering larva. Useless for carving, there- 

 fore, the mouth is a pure osculatory sucker, 

 which drains the provisions by a process of 

 exudation through the skin. We see here re- 

 peated what the Anthrax and the Leucospis 

 have already shown us : the gradual exhaustion 

 of a victim which the parasite consumes with- 

 out killing it. 



It is a curious spectacle even after that of 

 the Anthrax. We have here twenty or thirty 

 starvelings, all with their mouths pressed, as 

 for a kiss, to the body of the plump larva, 

 which, from day to day, fades and shrinks 

 without the least appreciable wound, thus 

 keeping fresh until reduced to a shrivelled 

 slough. If I disturb the gluttonous swarm, 

 all, with a sudden recoil, let go, drop off and 

 flounder around the foster-mother. They are 

 ^2 



