that other Tachina who ravages cells
stocked with game (The cells of the Hunting Wasps.--Translator's Note.),
nimbly deposit her eggs on the Osmia's harvest at the moment when the
Bee is going indoors? It is possible, though I cannot say for certain.
The fact remains that we soon see the Midge's grub-worms swarming around
the larva, the daughter of the house. There are ten, fifteen, twenty or
more of them gnawing with their pointed mouths at the common dish and
turning the food into a heap of fine, orange-coloured vermicelli. The
Bee's grub dies of starvation. It is life, life in all its ferocity
even in these tiny creatures. What an expenditure of ardent labour, of
delicate cares, of wise precautions, to arrive at...what? Her offspring
sucked and drained dry by the hateful Anthrax; her family sweated and
starved by the infernal Tachina.

The victuals consist mostly of yellow flour. In the centre of the heap,
a little honey is disgorged, which turns the pollen-dust into a firm,
reddish paste. On this paste the egg is laid, not flat, but upright,
with the fore-end free and the hind-end lightly held and fixed in the
plastic mass. When hatched, the young grub, kept in its place by its
rear-end, need only bend its neck a little to find the honey-soaked
paste under its mouth. When it grows stronger, it will release itself
from its support and eat up the surrounding flour.

All this is touching, in its maternal logic. For the new-born, dainty
bread-and-honey; for the adolescent, dry bread. In cases where
the provisions are all of a kind, these delicate precautions are
superfluous. The victuals of the Anthophorae and the Chalicodomae
consist of flowing honey, the same throughout. The egg is then laid at
full length on the surface, without any particular arrangement, thus
compelling the new-born grub to take its first mouthfuls at random. This
has no drawback, as the food is of the same quality throughout. But,
with the Osmia's provisions--dry powder on the edges, jam in the
centre--the grub would be in danger if its first meal were not regulated
in advance. To begin with pollen not seasoned with honey would be
fatal to its stomach. Having no choice of its mouthfuls because of its
immobility and being obliged to feed on the spot where it was hatched,
the young grub must needs be born on the central mass, where it has only
to bend its head a little way in order to find what its delicate stomach
calls for. The place of the egg,