d problem is this: the Chalicodoma grub destined to feed
the Anthrax is without a wound of any kind. The mother of the tiny larva
is a feeble Fly deprived of whatsoever weapon capable of injuring her
offspring's prey. Moreover, she is absolutely powerless to penetrate the
mason bee's fortress, powerless as a fluff of down against a rock. On
this point there is no doubt: the future wet nurse of the Anthrax has
not been paralyzed as are the live provisions collected by the Hunting
Wasps; she has received no bite nor scratch nor contusion of any sort;
she has experienced nothing out of the common: in short, she is in her
normal state. The billeted nursling arrives, we shall presently see how;
he arrives, scarcely visible, almost defying the scrutiny of the lens;
and, having made his preparations, he installs himself, he, the atom,
upon the monstrous nurse, whom he is to drain to the very husk. And she,
not paralyzed by a preliminary vivisection, endowed with all her normal
vitality, lets him have his way, lets herself be sucked dry, with the
utmost apathy. Not a tremor in her outraged flesh, not a quiver of
resistance. No corpse could show greater indifference to the bite which
it receives.

Ah, but the maggot has chosen the hour of attack with traitorous
cunning! Had it appeared upon the scene earlier, when the larva was
consuming its store of honey, things of a surety would have gone badly
with it. The assaulted one, feeling herself bled to death by that
ravenous kiss, would have protested with much wriggling of body and
grinding of mandibles. The position would have ceased to be tenable
and the intruder would have perished. But at this hour all danger has
disappeared. Enclosed in its silken tent, the larva is seized with the
lethargy that precedes the metamorphosis. Its condition is not death,
but neither is it life. It is an intermediary condition; it is almost
the latent vitality of grain or egg. Therefore there is no sign of
irritation on the larva's part under the needle with which I stir it and
still less under the sucker of the Anthrax grub, which is able to drain
the affluent breast in perfect safety.

This lack of resistance, induced by the torpor of the transformation,
appears to me necessary, in view of the weakness of the nursling as it
leaves the egg, whenever the mother is herself incapable of depriving
the victim of the power of self defense. And so the nonparalyzed larvae
are attacked during the period o