The Life of the Fly 



exceeds the dimensions of my pan, I roll the 

 reptile in a double spiral, or in two storeys. 

 When the copious joint is in full process of 

 dissolution, the pan becomes a puddle wherein 

 wallow, in countless numbers, the grubs of the 

 Greenbottle and those of Sarcophaga carnaria, 

 the Grey or Chequered Flesh-fly, which are 

 even mightier liquefiers. All the sand in the 

 apparatus is saturated, has turned into mud, 

 as though there had been a shower of rain. 

 Through the hole at the bottom, which is 

 protected by a flat pebble, the gruel trickles 

 drop by drop. It is a still at work, a mortu- 

 ary still, in which the Snake is being drawn 

 off. Wait a week or two; and the whole will 

 have disappeared, drunk up by the sun: 

 naught but the scales and bones will remain on 

 a sheet of mud. 



To conclude : the maggot is a power in this 

 world. To give back to life, with all speed, 

 the remains of that which has lived, it 

 macerates and condenses corpses, distilling 

 them into an essence wherewith the earth, the 

 plant's foster-mother, may be nourished and 

 enriched. 



232 



