The Life of the Fly 



microscope, during the period oi torpor. Its 

 contents consists almost entirely of a liquid 

 broth, in which swim numberless oily globules 

 and a line dust of uric acid, a sort of offthrow 

 of the oxidized tissues. A flowing thing, 

 shapeless and nameless, is all that the animal 

 is, if we add abundant ramified air-ducts, some 

 nervous filaments and, under, the skin, a thin 

 laver of muscular fibres. A condition of this 

 kind accounts for a fatty transpiration through 

 the skin when the Anthrax' sucker is at work. 

 At any other time, when the larva is in the 

 active period or else when the insect has 

 reached the perfect stage, the firmness of the 

 tissues would resist the transfusion and the 

 suckling of the Anthrax would become a diffi- 

 cult matter, or even impossible. In point of 

 fact, I find the grub of the Fly established, in 

 the vast majority of cases, on the sleeping 

 larva and sometimes, but rarely, on the pupa. 

 Never do I see it on the vigorous larva eating 

 its honey; and hardly ever on the insect 

 brought to perfection, as we find it enclosed 

 in its cell all through the autumn and winter. 

 And we can say the same of the other grub- 

 eaters that drain their victims without wound- 

 ing them: all are engaged in their death-deal- 

 ing work during the period of torpor, when 



52 



