died has been replaced by a living
mass of equal dimensions, but subdivided. The price of this colony's
existence is the conversion of the chrysalis into a sort of milk food of
doubtful constitution. The enormous udder has been drained outright.

You shudder when you think of that budding flesh nibbled bit by bit by
four or five hundred gormandizers; the horrified imagination refuses to
picture the anguish suffered by the tortured wretch. But is there really
any pain? We have leave to doubt it. Pain is a patent of nobility; it is
more pronounced in proportion as the sufferer belongs to a higher order.
In the lower ranks of animal life, it must be greatly reduced, perhaps
even nil, especially when life, in the throes of evolution, has not yet
acquired a stable equilibrium. The white of an egg is living matter, but
endures the prick of a needle without a quiver. Would it not be the
same with the chrysalis of the great peacock, dissected cell by cell by
hundreds of infinitesimal anatomists? Would it not be the same with the
pupa of the flesh fly? These are organisms put back into the crucible,
reverting to the egg state for a second birth. There is reason to
believe, therefore, that their destruction crumb by crumb is merciful.

Towards the end of August, the parasite of the flesh fly's grubs makes
her appearance out of doors in the adult form. She is a Chalcidid, as
I expected. She issues from the barrel through one or two little round
holes which the prisoners have pierced with a patient tooth. I count
some thirty to each pupa. There would not be enough room in the abode if
the family were larger.

The imp is a slim and elegant creature, but oh, how small! She measures
hardly two millimeters. Her garb is bronzed black, with pale legs and a
heart shaped, pointed, slightly pedunculate abdomen, with never a trace
of a probe for inoculating the eggs. The head is transversal, the width
exceeding the length.

The male is only half the size of the female; he is also very much less
numerous. Perhaps pairing is here, as we see elsewhere, a secondary
matter from which it is possible to abstain, in part, without injuring
the prospects of the race. Nevertheless, in the tube wherein I have
housed the swarm, the few males lost among the crowd ardently woo the
passing fair. There is much to be done outside, as long as the flesh
fly's season lasts; things are urgent; and each pigmy hurries as fast as
she can to take up her part as a