The Life of the Fly 



they take It away again, not caring for the 

 dish. 



They want something different : a wounded, 

 a dying grub; a corpse dissolving into sanies. 

 Indeed, if I prick the Wasp-grub with a needle, 

 the scornful ones at once come and sup at the 

 bleeding wound. If I give them a dead grub, 

 brown with putrefaction, the worms rip it open 

 and feast on its humours. Better still : I can 

 feed them quite satisfactorily with Wasps that 

 have turned putrid under their horny rings; 

 I see them greedily suck the juices of decom- 

 posing Rosechafer-grubs; I can keep them 

 thriving with chopped-up butcher's meat, 

 which they know how to liquefy by the method 

 of the common maggot. And these unpreju- 

 diced ones, who accept anything that comes 

 their way, provided it be dead, refuse It when 

 It is alive. Like the true Flies that they are, 

 frank body-snatchers, they wait, before touch- 

 ing a morsel, for death to do Its work. 



Inside the Wasps' nest, robust grubs are the 

 rule and weaklings the rare exception, because 

 of the assiduous supervision which eliminates 

 anything that is diseased and like to die. 

 Here, nevertheless, Volucella-grubs are found, 

 on the combs, among the busy Wasps. They 

 are not, it Is true, so numerous as In the char- 

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