t to be scaled. The
hydrocephalous one resumes her performance more vigorously than ever;
she inflates and deflates her frontal knob. The pounded sand rustles
down the insect's sides. The legs play but a secondary part. Stretched
behind, motionless, when the piston stroke is delivered, they furnish
a support. As the sand descends, they pile it and nimbly push it back,
after which they drag along lifelessly until the next avalanche. The
head advances each time by a length equal to that of the sand displaced.
Each stroke of the frontal swelling means a step forward. In a dry,
loose soil, things go pretty fast. A column six inches high is traversed
in less than a quarter of an hour.

As soon as it reaches the surface, the insect, covered with dust,
proceeds to make its toilet. It thrusts out the blister of its forehead
for the last time and brushes it carefully with its front tarsi. It is
important that the little pounding engine should be carefully dusted
before it is taken inside to form a forehead that will open no more:
this lest any grit should lodge in the head. The wings are carefully
brushed and polished; they lose their curved notches; they lengthen and
spread. Then, motionless on the surface of the sand, the fly matures
fully. Let us set her at liberty. She will go and join the others on the
Snakes in my pans.

CHAPTER XI. THE BUMBLEBEE FLY

Underneath the wasp's brown paper manor house, the ground is channeled
into a sort of drain for the refuse of the nest. Here are shot the dead
or weakly larvae which a continual inspection roots out from the cells
to make room for fresh occupants; here, at the time of the autumn
massacre, are flung the backward grubs; here, lastly, lies a good part
of the crowd killed by the first touch of winter. During the rack and
ruin of November and December, this sewer becomes crammed with animal
matter.

Such riches will not remain unemployed. The world's great law which says
that nothing edible shall be wasted provides for the consumption of a
mere ball of hair disgorged by the owl. How shall it be with the vast
stores of a ruined wasps' nest! If they have not come yet, the consumers
whose task it is to salve this abundant wreckage for nature's markets,
they will not tarry in coming and waiting for the manna that will soon
descend from above. That public granary, lavishly stocked by death, will
become a busy factory of fresh life. Who are the guests summoned to the
banquet?