ii8 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



may expand a little, in going bad, and protrude in one 

 or two places. However small the fleshy eyots that show 

 above the surface, the Flies come to them and breed. 

 Sometimes also the juices oozing from the putrid meat 

 soak a small extent of the sandy floor. That is enough 

 for the maggot's first establishment. These causes of 

 failure are avoided with a layer of sand about an inch 

 thick. Then the Bluebottle, the Flesh-fly, and other Flies 

 whose grubs batten on dead bodies are kept at a distance. 



In the hope of awakening us to a proper sense of our 

 insignificance, pulpit orators sometimes make an unfair 

 use of the grave and its worms. Let us put no faith 

 in their doleful rhetoric. The chemistry of man's final 

 dissolution is eloquent enough of our emptiness : there is 

 no need to add imaginary horrors. The worm of the 

 sepulcher is an invention of cantankerous minds, incapa- 

 ble of seeing things as they are. Covered by but a few 

 inches of earth, the dead can sleep their quiet sleep: no 

 Fly will ever come to take advantage of them. 



At the surface of the soil, exposed to the air, the 

 hideous invasion is possible ; aye, it is the invariable rule. 

 For the melting down and remolding of matter, man is 

 no better, corpse for corpse, than the lowest of the brutes. 

 Then the Fly exercises her rights and deals with us as 

 she does with any ordinary animal refuse. Nature treats 

 us with magnificent indifference in her great regenerating 

 factory : placed in her crucibles, animals and men, beggars 

 and kings are one and all alike. There you have true 

 equality, the only equality in this world of ours : equality 

 in the presence of the maggot. 



