The Life of the Fly 



attack with traitorous cunning! Had it ap- 

 peared upon the scene earlier, when the larva 

 was consuming its store of honey, things of a 

 surety would have gone badly with it. The 

 assaulted one, feeling herself bled to death by 

 that ravenous kiss, would have protested with 

 much wriggling of body and grinding of man- 

 dibles. The position would have ceased to be 

 tenable and the intruder would have perished. 

 But at this hour all danger has disappeared. 

 Enclosed in its silken tent, the larva is seized 

 with the lethargy that precedes the metamor- 

 phosis. Its condition is not death, but neither 

 is it life. It is an intermediary condition; it 

 is almost the latent vitality of grain or egg. 

 Therefore there is no sign of irritation on the 

 larva's part under the needle with which I 

 stir it and still less under the sucker of the 

 Anthrax-grub, which is able to drain the af- 

 fluent breast in perfect safety. 



This lack of resistance, induced by the tor- 

 por of the transformation, appears to me 

 necessary, in view of the weakness of the 

 nurseling as it leaves the egg, whenever the 

 mother is herself incapable of depriving the 

 victim of the power of self-defence. And so 

 the nonparalyzed larvae are attacked during 



42 



