The Larva and the Nymph 



is comfortably digesting the earlier meal. 

 Nevertheless, the grub, when quite young, 

 when newly hatched, is not so dainty: it goes 

 for the bread first and the jam afterwards. 

 It has no choice : it is obliged to bite its first 

 mouthful right out of the breast, at the spot 

 where the mother fixed the egg. The food 

 here is a little harder, but the place is safe, 

 because of the profound inertia into which the 

 thorax has been plunged by three thrusts of 

 the dagger. Elsewhere there would be, if 

 not always, at least often, spasmodic shud- 

 ders which would dislodge the feeble grub 

 and expose it to terrible hazards among a 

 heap of victims whose hind-legs, toothed like 

 saws, might give an occasional jerk and whose 

 mandibles might still be capable of snapping. 

 It is therefore the question of safety and not 

 of the grub's likes or dislikes that determines 

 the mother's choice in placing the egg. 



And here a suspicion occurs to my mind. 

 The first ration, the Cricket on whom the egg 

 is laid, exposes the grub to more parlous risks 

 than do the others. To begin with, the larva 

 is still but a frail worm ; and then the victim 

 is quite a recent one and therefore most likely 

 to give evidence of a spark of life. This 

 first victim has to be paralysed as completely 

 99 



