296 Flashlights on Nati'ke 



the question itself, but also discovered a meaning 

 and purpose in a certain orj^an of the adult grub, 

 the nature of which had heretofore been a standing 

 puzzle to that section of society whicii interests 

 itself prominently in the Hessian fly question. The 

 larva in its " tlax-seed "' stage develops an odd and 

 very hard organ, known as '* the anchor-process," 

 near the head; and this "anchor-process," as Mr. 

 Knock has shown, is used by the grub to turn 

 it round completely within its hardened pupa- case. 

 (The last phrase, I will admit, is not quite scienti- 

 fically correct, but I do not wish to complicate 

 the subject by introducing a multiplicity of tech- 

 nical terms unknown to my readers.) In Xo. 6 

 you can see the adult grub in the very act of thus 

 turning round, head to tail, within his outer skin, 

 so that he may be able to emerge as a full-grown 

 fly, head upward. A tiger is nothing to it, though 

 a tiger moves within his own integuments more 

 freely than most of us. You will note that during 

 the feeding stage the grub's mouth and under 

 side were pressed against the stem ; when he has 

 performed this curious somersault on his own 

 axis, so to speak, the head is uppermost, but the 

 mouth and under side of the body are turned out- 

 ward towards the sheath, not inward towards the 

 stem and hollow centre of the barley -plant. He 

 wants now to bite his way out, not to suck at the 

 stalk for its nutritive juices. 



I need hardly add that it takes some watching to 

 detect such invisible movements inside a hard dark 

 case ; and only by the closest and most unweary- 



