The Life of the Fly 



To see them at work, I select, as the field 

 of exploitation, the Satanic boletus {Boletus 

 Satanas, LENZ.) , one of the largest mushrooms 

 that I can gather in my neighbourhood. It 

 has a dirty-white cap ; the mouths of the tubes 

 are a bright orange-red; the stem swells into 

 a bulb with a delicate net-work of carmine 

 veins. I divide a perfectly sound specimen 

 Into equal parts and place these in two deep 

 plates, put side by side. One of the halves is 

 left as it is : it will act as a control, a term of 

 comparison. The other half receives on the 

 pores of its under-surface a couple of dozen 

 maggots taken from a second boletus in full 

 process of decomposition. 



The dissolving action of the grub asserts 

 Itself on the very day whereon these prepara- 

 tions are made. The under-surface, originally 

 a bright red, turns brown and runs in every 

 direction into a mass of dark stalactites. Soon, 

 the flesh of the cap is attacked and, in a few 

 days, becomes a gruel similar to liquid asphalts 

 It is almost as fluid as water. In this broth the 

 maggots wallow, wriggling their bodies and, 

 from time to time, sticking the breathing holes 

 in their sterns above the water. It is an exact 

 repetition of what the liquefiers of meat, the 

 grubs of the Grey Flesh-fly and the Bluebottle, 

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