t feel at home with us; the only
one who comes fussing along is the bluebottle, who thus escapes the
tribute due to the consumer of plump sausages. But, in the fields, where
she readily lays her eggs upon any carcass that she finds, she, as well
as the others, sees her vermin swept away by the gluttonous Saprinus.

In addition, graver disasters decimate her family, if, as I do not
doubt, we can apply to the bluebottle what I have seen happen in the
case of her rival, the flesh fly. So far, I have had no opportunity of
actually perceiving with the first what I have to tell of the second;
still, I do not hesitate to repeat about the one what observation has
taught me about the other, for the larval analogies between the two
flies are very close.

Here are the facts. I have gathered a number of pupae of the flesh fly
in one of my vermin jars. Wishing to examine the pupa's hinder end,
which is hollowed into a cup and scalloped into a coronet, I stave in
one of the little barrels and force open the last segments with the
point of my pocketknife. The horny keg does not contain what I expected
to find: it is full of tiny grubs packed one atop the other with the
same economy of space as anchovies in a bottle. Save for the skin,
which has hardened into a brown shell, the substance of the maggot has
disappeared, changed into a restless swarm.

There are thirty-five occupants. I replace them in their casket.
The rest of my harvest, wherein, no doubt, are other pupae similarly
stocked, is arranged in tubes that will easily show me what happens. The
thing to discover is what genus of parasites the grubs enclosed belong
to. But it is not difficult, without waiting for the hatching of the
adults, to recognize their nature merely by their mode of life. They
form part of the family of Chalcididae, who are microscopic ravagers of
living entrails.

Not long ago, in winter, I took from the chrysalis of a great peacock
moth four hundred and forty-nine parasites belonging to the same group.
The whole substance of the future moth had disappeared, all but the
nymphal wrapper, which was intact and formed a handsome Russia-leather
wallet. The worm grubs were here heaped up and squeezed together to
the point of sticking to one another. The hair pencil extracts them in
bundles and cannot separate them without some difficulty. The holding
capacity is strained to the utmost; the substance of the vanished Moth
would not fill it better. That which