The Bluebottle : The Grub 



horny little kegs and demolish them at a bite. 

 Even though he did not touch the contents, a 

 live thing which he probably dislikes, he would 

 at least test the flavour of that lifeless sub- 

 stance, the container. The future Fly would 

 be lost, because her casing would be pierced. 

 Even so, in the store-rooms of our silk-mills, 

 a certain Dermestes {Dermestes vulpinus, 

 Fabr.) digs into the cocoons to attack the 

 horny covering of the chrysalis. 



The maggot foresees the danger and makes 

 itself scarce before the other arrives. In what 

 sort of memory does it house so much wisdom, 

 indigent, headless creature that it is, for it is 

 only by extension that we can give the name of 

 head to the animal's pointed fore-part? How 

 did it learn that, to safeguard the pupa, it 

 must desert the carcass and that, to safeguard 

 the Fly, it must not bury itself too far down? 



To emerge from underground after the per- 

 fect insect is hatched, the Bluebottle's device 

 consists in disjointing her head into two mov- 

 able halves, which, each distended with its 

 great red eye, by turns separate and reunite. 

 In the intervening space, a large, glassy hernia 

 rises and disappears, disappears and rises. 

 When the two move asunder, with one eye 

 forced back to the right, the other to the left, 



357 



