n exterminator.

How is the parasite's inroad into the flesh fly's pupae effected? Truth
is always veiled in a certain mystery. The good fortune that secured
me the ravaged pupa taught me nothing concerning the tactics of the
ravager. I have never seen the Chalcidid explore the contents of
my appliances; my attention was engaged elsewhere and nothing is so
difficult to see as a thing not yet suspected. But, though direct
observation be lacking, logic will tell us approximately what we want to
know.

It is evident, to begin with, that the invasion cannot have been made
through the sturdy amour of the pupae. This is too hard to be penetrated
by the means at the pigmy's disposal. Naught but the delicate skin of
the maggots lends itself to the introduction of the germs. An egg laying
mother, therefore, appears, inspects the surface of the pool of sanies
swarming with grubs, selects the one that suits her and perches on
it; then, with the tip of her pointed abdomen, whence emerges, for
an instant, a short probe kept hidden until then, she operates on the
patient, perforating his paunch with a dexterous wound into which the
germs are inserted. Probably, a number of pricks are administered, as
the presence of thirty parasites seems to demand.

Anyway, the maggot's skin is pierced at either one point or many; and
this happens while the grub is swimming in the pools formed by the
putrid flesh. Having said this, we are faced with a question of serious
interest. To set it forth necessitates a digression which seems to have
nothing to do with the subject in hand and is nevertheless connected
with it in the closest fashion. Without certain preliminaries, the
remainder would be unintelligible. So now for the preliminaries.

I was in those days busy with the poison of the Languedocian scorpion
and its action upon insects. To direct the sting toward this or the
other part of the victim and moreover to regulate its emission would be
absolutely impossible and also very dangerous, as long as the scorpions
were allowed to act as they pleased. I wished to be able myself to
choose the part to be wounded; I likewise wished to vary the dose
of poison at will. How to set about it? The scorpion has no jarlike
receptacle in which the venom is accumulated and stored, like that
possessed, for instance, by the wasp and the bee. The last segment of
the tail, gourd shaped and surmounted by the sting, contains only a
powerful mass of muscles along