88 INSECT BEHAVIOR 



and over, before laying her glistening oily yellow egg upon the mass 

 of helpless flesh. 



In two days the young cannibals wriggle from the eggs, footless, 

 whitish maggots and helpless against the slightest odds. Yet nature 

 has provided for them in such a manner that they may attach them- 

 selves to superior creatures, who must lie motionless and submit to 

 their suckling mouths until the last cells of life pass into the bodies 

 of the cannibals! 



A single egg is laid upon the contents of each cell, and normally 

 seven days are required by the young to gorge themselves into a state 

 of torpor which lasts until the following spring. Then a wonderful 

 transformation takes place. The motionless, fatty larva commences 

 to assume a definite form. 



Within its milky skin, disintegrated tissues and layers of cells have 

 been whirled by nature's magic hand into definite parts and organs 

 of the nascent creature. Legs unfold like budding leaves, a narrow- 

 ing of the waist separates the thorax from the abdomen and delicate 

 wings "sprout" from the center of the back. 



Then comes color, darkening the head and thorax and throwing 

 yellow bands about the abdomen, and finally comes the gift of motion, 

 which leaves only a layer of earth between the cannibal, the sun- 

 light and another generation of innocents to become her victims. 



Crimes cannot always go unpunished. There must be justice, even 

 in the insect world. This slaughter of the innocent flower bees must 

 be avenged or regulated and nature's reprisal is cunning and severe. 



There is another wasp-like creature, a true fly in reality, that plays 

 her part in this gruesome drama. Nature has given her a flight that 

 resembles a wasp's, to afford protection from minor enemies, but this 

 is not the most remarkable of her gifts. It is her mission in life to 

 hold these cannibals of the insect world in check, and she performs 

 her duty with precision. 



