THE ANTHRAX FLY 173 



having made its preparations it installs itself upon its mon- 

 strous victim, whom it is going to drain to the very husk. 

 And the victim, though not paralysed nor in any way lacking 

 in vitality, lets it have its way, and is sucked dry without 

 a tremor or a quiver of resistance. No corpse could show 

 greater indifference to a bite. 



Had the Anthrax-grub appeared upon the scene earlier, 

 when the Bee-grub was eating her store of honey, things would 

 surely have gone badly with it. The victim, feeling herself 

 bled to death by that ravenous kiss, would have protested 

 with much wriggling of body and grinding of mandibles. The 

 intruder would have perished. But at the hour chosen so 

 wisely by it all danger is over. Enclosed in her silken sheath, 

 the larva is in the torpid state that precedes her transformation 

 into a Bee. Her condition is not death, but neither is it life. 

 So there is no sign of irritation when I stir her with a needle, 

 nor when the Anthrax-grub attacks her. 



There is another marvellous point about the meal of the 

 Anthrax-grub. The Bee-grub remains alive until the very 

 end. Were she really dead she would, in less than twenty-four 

 hours, turn a dirty-brown colour and decompose. But during 

 the whole fortnight that the meal lasts, the butter-colour of 

 the victim continues unaltered, and there is no sign of putre- 

 faction. Life persists until the body is reduced to nothing. 

 And yet, if I myself give her a wound, the whole body turns 

 brown and soon begins to rot. The prick of a needle makes 

 her decompose. A mere nothing kills it ; the atrocious draining 

 of its strength does not. 



The only explanation I can suggest is this, and it is no more 

 than a suggestion. Nothing but fluids can be drawn by the 

 sucker of the Anthrax through the unpierced skin of the Bee- 

 grub : no part of the breathing-apparatus or the nervous 

 system can pass. As these two essentials remain uninjured, 

 life goes on until the fluid contents of the skin are entirely 

 exhausted. On the other hand, if I myself injure the larva 

 of the Bee, I disturb the nervous or the air-conducting 



