150 
NATURE’S CRAFTSMEN 
of pepsin that turns the flesh into a liquid which 
the glowworm sucks up, feeding it may be for 
days and days at the same table. 
“ This ability to turn flesh to liquid is not the 
glowworms’ alone. The burying beetles have it; 
so, too, do the bluebottles, the greenbottles, and 
the big gray flesh flies. You may perhaps have 
seen some of these little carrion lovers at their re¬ 
pulsive feast. You turned shudderingly away, 
of course, and yet the service which these scav¬ 
engers render is of inestimable value. They help 
to return to the earth with all speed the remains 
of that which has lived; they give back to Mother 
Earth an essence which enriches her soil, and at 
the same time they do away with a loathsome ob¬ 
ject, which if left would pollute the air all around, 
spreading disease and death. 
“ The tools with which the glowworm performs 
his wonders are simple enough. They are merely 
two hollow little fangs, much like the spears 
which our friend Madam Doodlebug uses to 
thrust into the ants which she entraps in her 
clever wells. But the ant-lion, as we know, 
merely sucks the blood of her captive and tosses 
his carcass out over her head on to the rubbish 
heap. The glowworm, using the same tools, is 
more efficient; by reason of the addition of its 
liquefying pepsin it is enabled to make a clean 
sweep. No plate washed in our kitchen was ever 
