The Life of the Fly

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV LARVAL DIMORPHISM T F the reader has paid any attention to the story of the Anthrax, he must have perceived that my narrative is incomplete. The Fox in the fable saw how the Lion's visitors entered his den, but did not see how they went out. With us, it is the converse: we know the way out of the Mason-bee's fortress, but we do not know the way in. To leave the cell of which he has eaten the owner, the Anthrax becomes a perforating-machine, a living tool from which our own industry might take a hint if it required new drills for boring rocks. When the exit-tunnel is opened, this tool splits like a pod bursting in the sun; and from the stout framework there escapes a dainty Fly, a velvety flake, a soft fluff that astounds us by its contrast with the roughness of the depths whence it ascends. On this point, we know pretty well what there is to know. There remains the entrance into the cell, a puzzle that has kept me on the alert for a quarter of a century. To begin with, it is evident that the mother cannot lodge her egg in the cell of the Masonbee, which has been long closed and barricaded with a cement wall by the time that the Anthrax makes her appearance. To penetrate it, she would have to become an excavating-tool once more and resume the cast-off rags which she left behind in the exit-window; she would have to retrace her steps, to be reborn a pupa; and life knows none of these retrogressions. The full-grown insect, if endowed with claws, mandibles and plenty of perseverance, might at a pinch force the mortar casket; but the Fly is not so endowed. Her slender legs would be strained and deformed by merely sweeping away a little dust; her mouth is a sucker for gathering the sugary exudations of the flowers and not the solid...