112 FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



like this, which I can only compare to a cupping-glass. Its 

 attack is a mere kiss, but what a cruel kiss ! 



To observe the working of this curious machine I placed 

 a new-born Anthrax-grub, together with its prey, in a glass 

 tube. Here I was able to watch the strange repast from 

 beginning to end. 



The Anthrax-grub the Bee's uninvited guest is fixed by 

 its mouth or sucker to any convenient part of the plump Bee- 

 grub. It is ready to break off its kiss suddenly, should any- 

 thing disturb it, and to resume it as easily when it wishes. 

 After three or four days of this curious contact the Bee-grub, 

 formerly so fat, glossy, and healthy, begins to look withered. 

 Her sides fall in, her fresh colour fades, her skin becomes covered 

 with little folds, and she is evidently shrinking. A week is 

 hardly passed when these signs of exhaustion increase to a 

 startling degree. The victim is flabby and wrinkled, as though 

 borne down by her own weight. If I move her from her place 

 she flops and sprawls like a half-filled indiarubber bottle. 

 But the kiss of the Anthrax goes on emptying her : soon she 

 is but a sort of shrivelled bladder, growing smaller and smaller 

 from hour to hour. At length, between the twelfth and fif- 

 teenth day, all that remains of the Mason-bee's larva is a little 

 white grain, hardly as large as a pin's head. 



If I soften this small remnant in water, and then blow into 

 it through a very fine glass tube, the skin fills out and resumes 

 the shape of the larva. There is no outlet anywhere for the 

 compressed air. It is intact : it is nowhere broken. This 

 proves that, under the cupping-glass of the Anthrax, the skin 

 has been drained through its pores. 



The devouring grub, in making its attack, chooses its 

 moment very cunningly. It is but an atom. Its mother, 

 a feeble Fly, has done nothing to help it. She has no 

 weapons ; and she is quite incapable of penetrating the Mason- 

 bee's fortress. The future meal of the Anthrax has not been 

 paralysed, nor injured in any way. The parasite arrives 

 we shall presently see how ; it arrives, scarcely visible, and 



