THE ANTHRAX FLY 175 



unable to leave it when the time comes to free herself and 

 appear in broad daylight. 



And the grub, for its part, is powerless to prepare the way 

 for the coming flight. That buttery little cylinder, owning 

 no tools but a sucker so flimsy and small that it is barely visible 

 through a magnifying-glass, is even weaker than the full- 

 grown insect, which at least flies and walks. The Mason-bee's 

 cell seems to this creature like a granite cave. How can it 

 get out ? The problems would be insoluble to these two in- 

 capables, if nothing else played its part. 



Among insects the pupa the transition-stage, when the 

 creature is no longer a grub but is not yet a perfect insect is 

 generally a striking picture of complete weakness. A sort of 

 mummy, tightly bound in swaddling-clothes, motionless and 

 unconscious, it awaits its transformation. Its tender flesh is 

 hardly solid ; its limbs are transparent as crystals, and are 

 held fixed in their place, lest a movement should disturb the 

 work of development. In the same way, to secure his recovery, 

 a patient whose bones are broken is held bound in the surgeon's 

 bandages. 



Well, here, by a strange reversal of the usual state of things, 

 a stupendous task is laid upon the pupa of the Anthrax. It is 

 the pupa that has to toil, to strive, to exhaust itself in efforts 

 to burst the wall and open the way out. To the pupa falls 

 the desperate duty, to the full-grown insect the joy of rest- 

 ing in the sun. The result of these unusual conditions is that 

 the pupa possesses a strange and complicated set of tools that 

 is in no way suggested by the grub nor recalled by the perfect 

 Fly. This set of tools includes a collection of ploughshares, 

 gimlets, hooks, spears, and other implements that are not 

 found in our trades nor named in our dictionaries. I will do 

 my best to describe the strange gear. 



By the time that July is nearly over the Anthrax has 

 finished eating the Bee-grub. From that time until the 

 following May it lies motionless in the Mason-bee's cocoon, 

 beside the remains of its victim. When the fine days of May 



