MAR\'ELS OF METAMORPHOSIS 



823 



watch every pupal 

 Iransformation as the 

 larva became a pupa, 

 and the pupa became 

 a wasp. But I am not 

 going to try to de- 

 scribe these changes. 

 The photographs tell 

 the story far better 

 than T can tell it in 

 words ( pages 817- 

 819). 



A HOMEMADE CANDID 

 CAMERA 



'Sly photographic 

 equipment is neither 

 fancy nor elaborate. 

 I use a cheap, short- 

 focus Kodak lens in 

 an old view camera 

 frame with a long bel- 

 lows, which gives me 

 a four-times-direct 

 magnification on the 

 negative. My dark- 

 room is the bathroom 

 and the kitchen sink, 

 and the homemade 

 entomological labora- 

 tory occupies one end 

 of the cottage living 

 room. 



Such working con- 

 ditions have certain 

 advantages over reg- 

 ular schedules in any 

 college laboratory. I 

 Uye right here and 

 can be on the job 

 night and day when 

 necessary, and that 

 often means the dif- 

 ference between suc- 

 cess and failure in 

 getting some rare 

 shot. 



Bugs are utterly indifferent to prevailing 

 working hours, and vital moments in insect 

 life, such as sudden changes in larval or 

 pupal forms, are just as likely to occur after 

 midnight. 



JMore than once my camera has caught 

 them in the act because I set the alarm 

 clock to go off every hour or two, so that 

 they could not get a chance to slip one 

 over on me while I was asleep on the job. 



Early in 193 7 it appeared that The Case 



WHEN THE L.ARVA EMERGES, THE SPIDER DIES 



The "crime" is consummated when the parasite bites a hole through the 

 host's skin and "flows" out backward. The exit aperture is of much 

 smaller diameter than the body of the maggot, which can change its shape 

 at will like a snail. Smithi's head and neck Unger within the shriveled 

 spider for a day or two to lick the "cupboard" bare — for she'll never eat 

 again. At the end of its ten months' feast, the fat grub must have stored 

 up energy enough to last its entire pupal and adult life. Free at last (lower 

 picture), the larval assassin rears her head, as if sniffing the strange new 

 world of space. 



of the Curious Cocoon was fully solved. 

 The photographic record was complete, the 

 "action" confession in pictured proof. But 

 Psammy still had an ace up her sleeve. 



PSAMMY PLAYS ANOTHER ACE 



I was Still rearing a few Psammies in the 

 laboratory. Among those to emerge was 

 a fine healthy female, but there was no 

 male to be her mate. She seemed destined 

 to live and die an old maid. 



