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. 
