The Life of the Fly 



cubic millimetre 1 is the usual charge. The 

 injection has to be made at parts that are gen- 

 erally covered with horn. So as not to break 

 the point of my fragile instrument, I prepare 

 the way with a needle, with which I prick the 

 victim at the spot required. I insert the tip of 

 the loaded injector in the hole thus made and 

 I blow. The thing is done in a moment, very 

 neatly and in an orthodox fashion, favourable 

 to delicate experiments. I am delighted with 

 my modest apparatus. 



I am equally delighted with the results. The 

 Scorpion himself, when wounding with his 

 sting, in which the poison is not diluted as 

 mine is in the watch-glass, would not produce 

 effects like those of my pricks. Here is some- 

 thing more brutal, producing more convulsion 

 in the sufferer. The virus of my contriving ex- 

 cels the Scorpion's. 



The test is several times repeated, always 

 with the same mixture, which, drying up by 

 spontaneous evaporation, then made to serve 

 again by the addition of a few drops of water, 

 once more drained and once more moistened, 

 does duty for an indefinite length of time. In- 

 stead of abating, the virulence increases. 

 Moreover, the corpses of the insects operated 



1 .175 minim. — Translator's Note. 



272 



