A JUNGLE CLEARING 43 



carnation of her present form, knowledge of an 

 earlier, infinitely coarser diet. 



Together with the pure artistic joy which was 

 stirred at the sight of these tiny ornate globes, 

 there was aroused a realization of complexity, of 

 helpless, ignorant achievement; the butterfly 

 blindly pausing in her flower-to-flower fluttering 

 a pause as momentous to her race as that of the 

 slow daily and monthly progress of the weed's 

 struggle to fruition. 



I took a final glance at the eggs before return- 

 ing to my own larger world, and I detected a new 

 complication, one which left me with feelings too 

 involved for calm scientific contemplation. As 

 if a Martian should suddenly become visible to 

 an astronomer, I found that one of the egg 

 planets was inhabited. Perched upon the sum- 

 mit quite near the north pole was an insect, a 

 wasp, much smaller than the egg itself. And as 

 I looked, I saw it at the climax of its diminutive 

 life; for it reared up, resting on the tips of two 

 legs and the iridescent wings, and sunk its ovipos- 

 itor deep into the crystalline surface. As I 

 watched, an egg was deposited, about the latitude 

 of New York, and with a tremor the tiny wasp 

 withdrew its instrument and rested. 



