the Cetonia-larva will soon turn brown
and putrid. We then see the Scolia itself turn brown, distended as it
is with putrescent foodstuffs, and then cease all movement, without
attempting to withdraw from the sanies. It dies on the spot, poisoned by
its excessively high game.

What can be the meaning of this sudden corruption of the victuals,
followed by the death of the Scolia, when everything appeared to have
returned to its normal condition? I see only one explanation.
Disturbed in its activities and diverted from its usual courses by
my interference, the grub, when replaced on the wound from which I
extracted it, was unable to rediscover the lode at which it was working
a few minutes earlier; it thrust its way at random into the victim's
entrails; and a few untimely bites extinguished the last sparks of
vitality. Its confusion rendered it clumsy; and the mistake cost it its
life. It dies poisoned by the rich food which, if consumed according to
the rules, should have made it grow plump and lusty.

I was anxious to observe the deadly effects of a disturbed meal in
another fashion. This time the victim itself shall disorder the grub's
activities. The Cetonia-larva, as served up to the young Scolia by its
mother, is profoundly paralysed. Its inertia is complete and so striking
that it constitutes one of the leading features of this narrative. But
we will not anticipate. For the moment, the thing is to substitute for
this inert larva a similar larva, but one not paralysed, one very much
alive. To ensure that it shall not double up and crush the grub, I
confine myself to reducing it to helplessness, leaving it otherwise just
as I extracted it from its burrow. I must also be careful of its legs
and mandibles, the least touch of which would rip open the nurseling.
With a few turns of the finest wire I fix it to a little slab of cork,
with its belly in the air. Next, to provide the grub with a ready-made
hole, knowing that it will refuse to make one for itself, I contrive a
slight incision in the skin, at the point where the Scolia lays her egg.
I now place the grub upon the larva, with its head touching the bleeding
wound, and lay the whole on a bed of mould in a transparent beaker
protected by a pane of glass.

Unable to move, to wriggle, to scratch with its legs or snap with
its mandibles, the Cetonia-larva, a new Prometheus bound, offers
its defenceless flanks to the little Vulture destined to devour its
entrails. Wi