a wet mark behind them
as they crawl over the glass. The swarming brood creates a sort of mist
with the crossing and criss-crossing of its trails. The control tube,
on the contrary, keeps dry, proving that the moisture in which the worms
move is not due to a mere exudation from the meat.

Besides, the work of the maggot becomes more and more evident.
Gradually, the flesh flows in every direction like an icicle placed
before the fire. Soon, the liquefaction is complete. What we see is no
longer meat, but fluid Liebig's extract. If I overturned the tube, not a
drop of it would remain.

Let us clear our minds of any idea of solution by putrefaction, for in
the second tube a piece of meat of the same kind and size has remained,
save for color and smell, what it was at the start. It was a lump and
it is a lump, whereas the piece treated by the worms runs like melted
butter. Here we have maggot chemistry able to rouse the envy of
physiologists when studying the action of the gastric juice.

I obtain better results still with hard-boiled white of egg. When cut
into pieces the size of a hazel nut and handed over to the greenbottle's
grubs, the coagulated albumen dissolves into a colorless liquid which
the eye might mistake for water. The fluidity becomes so great that, for
lack of a support, the worms perish by drowning in the broth; they are
suffocated by the immersion of their hind part, with its open breathing
holes. On a denser liquid, they would have kept at the surface; on this,
they cannot.

A control tube, filled in the same way, but not colonized, stands beside
that in which the strange liquefaction takes place. The hardboiled white
of egg retains its original appearance and consistency. In course of
time, it dries up, if it does not turn moldy; and that is all.

The other quaternary compounds performing the same functions as
albumen--the gluten of cereals, the fibrin of blood, the casein of
cheese and the legumin of chickpeas--undergo a similar modification, in
varying degrees. Fed, from the moment of leaving the egg, on any one of
these substances, the worms thrive very well, provided that they escape
drowning when the gruel becomes too clear; they would not fare better
on a corpse. And, as a general rule, there is not much danger of going
under: the matter only half liquefies; it becomes a running pea soup,
rather than an actual fluid.

Even in this imperfect case, it is obvious that the greenbottle grubs
beg