The Bluebottle : The Grub 



be the same if the food supplied be of a lower 

 organism and consist of fish, for instance, of 

 Frog, Mollusc, insect, Centipede? Will the 

 worms accept these viands and, above all, can 

 they manage to liquefy them, which is the first 

 and foremost condition ? 



I serve a piece of raw Whiting. The flesh 

 is white, delicate, partly translucent, easy for 

 our stomachs to digest and no less suited to 

 the grub's dissolvent. It turns into an opales- 

 cent fluid, which runs like water. In fact, it 

 liquefies in much the same way as hard-boiled 

 white of egg. The worms at first wax fat, as 

 long as the conditions allow of some solid 

 eyots remaining; then, when foothold fails, 

 threatened with drowning in the too-fluid 

 broth, they creep up the side of the glass, anxi- 

 ous and restless to be off. They climb to the 

 cotton-wool stopper of the test-tube and try 

 to bolt through the wadding. Endowed with 

 stubborn perseverance, nearly all of them de- 

 camp in spite of the obstacle. The test-tube 

 with the white of egg showed me a similar ex- 

 odus. Although the fare suits them, as their 

 growth witnesses, the worms cease feeding and 

 make a point of escaping when death by 

 drowning is imminent. 



With other fish, such as Skate and Sardines, 



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