Objections and Rejoinders 



I may see a Turnip-moth come out of this 

 mummy, the victim of a dozen dagger- 

 thrusts. For the rest, there is no attempt at 

 spinning a cocoon, no jet of silky threads 

 flung out by the caterpillar before turning 

 into a chrysalis. Perhaps under normal con- 

 ditions metamorphosis takes place without 

 this protection. However, the moth whom 

 I expected to see was beyond the lim- 

 its of the possible. In the middle of May, 

 a month after the operation on the cater- 

 pillars, my three chrysalids, still incomplete 

 underneath, in the three or four middle seg- 

 ments, withered and at last went mouldy. 

 Is the evidence conclusive this time? Who 

 can conceive such a silly idea as that a prey 

 really dead, a corpse preserved from putre- 

 faction by an antiseptic, could contain what 

 is perhaps the most delicate work of life, 

 the development of the grub into the perfect 

 insect? 



The truth must be driven into recalcit- 

 rant brains with great blows of the sledge- 

 hammer. Let us once more employ this me- 

 thod. In September I unearth from a heap 

 of mould five Cetonia-grubs, paralysed by 

 the Two-banded Scolia and bearing on the 

 abdomen the as yet unhatched egg of the 

 Wasp. I remove the eggs and install the 

 365 



