th, believing its nurse to be
approaching. It fills the hexagonal chamber with its bulging sides.

The gluttonous visitor bends and slides its slender fore part, a blade
of exquisite suppleness, between the wall and the inhabitant, whose
slack rotundity yields to the pressure of this animated wedge. It
plunges into the cell, leaving no part of itself outside but its wide
hind quarters, with the red dots of the two breathing tubes.

It remains in this posture for some time, occupied with its work at
the bottom of the cell. Meanwhile, the wasps present do not interfere,
remain impassive, showing that the grub visited is in no peril. The
stranger, in fact, withdraws with a soft, gliding motion. The chubby
babe, a sort of India rubber bag, resumes its original volume without
having suffered any harm, as its appetite proves. A nurse offers it a
mouthful, which it accepts with every sign of unimpaired vigor. As for
the Volucella grub, it licks its lips after its own fashion, pushing
its two fangs in and out; then, without further loss of time, goes and
repeats its probing elsewhere.

What it wants down there, at the bottom of the cells, behind the grubs,
cannot be decided by direct observation; it must be guessed at. Since
the visited larva remains intact, it is not prey that the Volucella grub
is after. Besides, if murder formed part of its plans, why descend to
the bottom of the cell, instead of attacking the defenseless recluse
straight way? It would be much easier to suck the patient's juices
through the actual orifice of the cell. Instead of that, we see a dip,
always a dip and never any other tactics.

Then what is there behind the wasp grub? Let us try to put it as
decently as possible. In spite of its exceeding cleanliness, this grub
is not exempt from the physiological ills inseparable from the stomach.
Like all that eats, it has intestinal waste matter with regard to which
its confinement compels it to behave with extreme discretion. Like so
many other close-cabined larvae of Wasps and Bees, it waits until the
moment of the transformation to rid itself of its digestive refuse.
Then, once and for all, it casts out the unclean accumulation whereof
the pupa, that delicate, reborn organism, must not retain the least
trace. This is found later, in any empty cell, in the form of a dark
purple plug. But, without waiting for this final purge, this lump, there
are, from time to time, slight excretions of fluid, clear as w