The Life of the Fly 



at every moment, but never take a visible 

 mouthful from it. Nevertheless, the grub 

 waxes big and fat. How does this singular 

 consumer, who feeds without eating, set about 

 it? If he does not eat, he must drink; his 

 diet is soup. As meat is a compact substance, 

 which does not liquefy of its own accord, there 

 must, in that case, be a certain recipe to dis- 

 solve it into a fluid broth. Let us try to sur- 

 prise the maggot's secret. 



In a glass tube, sealed at one end, I insert 

 ■a piece of lean flesh, the size of a walnut, 

 which I have drained of its juices by squeez- 

 ing it in blotting-paper. On the top of this, 

 I place a few slabs of Greenbottle-eggs col- 

 lected a moment ago from the Snake in my 

 earthen pan. The number of germs is, rough- 

 ly, two hundred. I close the tube with a cotton 

 plug, stand it upright, in a shady corner of my 

 study, and leave things to take their course. A 

 control-tube, prepared like the first, but not 

 stocked with maggots, is placed beside it. 



As early as two or three days after the 

 hatching, I obtain a striking result. The 

 meat, which was thoroughly drained by the 

 blotting-paper, has become so moist that the 

 young vermin leave a wet mark behind them 

 as they crawl over the glass. The swarming 



226 



