The Life of the Fly 



Despite my negative attempts, therefore, I 

 remain convinced that the Anthrax-flies strew 

 their eggs one by one, on the spots frequented 

 by those Bees who suit their grubs. Each of 

 their sudden strokes with the tip of the abdo- 

 men represents a laying. They take no pre- 

 caution to place the germ under cover; for 

 that matter, any such precaution would be ren- 

 dered impossible by the mother's structure. 

 The egg, that delicate object, is laid roughly 

 in the blazing sun, between grains of sand, in 

 some wrinkle of the calcined chalk. That 

 summary installation is sufficient, provided the 

 coveted larva be near at hand. It is for the 

 young grub now to manage as best it can at its 

 own risk and peril. 



Though the sunken roads of the Legue did 

 not tell me all that I wished to know, they at 

 least made it very probable that the coming 

 grub must reach the victualled cell by its own 

 efforts. But the grub which we know, the one 

 that drains the bag of fat which may be a 

 Chalicodoma-larva or an Osmia-larva, cannot 

 move from its place, still less indulge in jour- 

 neys of discovery through the thickness of a 

 wall and the web of a cocoon. So an impera- 

 tive necessity presents itself: there must per- 

 force be an initial larva-form, capable of mov- 



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