第47章 CHAPTER IX THE GREENBOTTLES(3)

I carefully raise the animal under which these things are happening. The egg laying mothers do not disturb themselves; they are far too busy. Their ovipositor extended telescope fashion, they heap egg upon egg. With the point of their hesitating, groping instrument, they try to lodge each germ, as it comes, farther into the mass. Around the serious, red-eyed matrons, the Ants circle, intent on pillage. Many of them make off with a greenbottle egg between their teeth. I see some who, greatly daring, effect their theft under the ovipositor itself. The layers do not put themselves out, let the ants have their way, remain impassive. They know their womb to be rich enough to make good any such larceny.

Indeed, what escapes the depredations of the ants promises a plenteous brood. Let us come back a few days later and lift the mole again. Underneath, in a pool of sanies, is a surging mass of swarming sterns and pointed heads, which emerge, wriggle and dive in again. It suggests a seething billow. It turns one's stomach.

It is horrible, most horrible. Let us steel ourselves against the sight: it will be worse elsewhere.

Here is a fat snake. Rolled into a compact whorl, she fills the whole pan. The greenbottles are plentiful. New ones arrive at every moment and, without quarrel or strife, take their place among the others, busily laying. The spiral furrow left by the reptile's curves is the favorite spot. Here alone, in the narrow space between the folds, are shelters against the heat of the sun. The glistening Flies take their places, side by side, in rows; they strive to push their abdomen and their ovipositor as far forward as possible, at the risk of rumpling their wings and cocking them towards their heads. The care of the person is neglected amid this serious business. Placidly, with their red eyes turned outwards, they form a continuous cordon. Here and there, at intervals, the rank is broken; layers leave their posts, come and walk about upon the snake, what time their ovaries ripen for another emission, and then hurry back, slip into the rank and resume the flow of germs.

Despite these interruptions, the work of breeding goes fast. In the course of one morning, the depths of the spiral furrow are hung with a continuous white bark, the heaped up eggs. They come off in great slabs, free of any stain; they can be shoveled up, as it were, with a paper scoop. It is a propitious moment if we wish to follow the evolution at close quarters. I therefore gather a profusion of this white manna and lodge it in glass tubes, test tubes and jars, with the necessary provisions.

The eggs, about a millimeter long, are smooth cylinders, rounded at both ends. They hatch within twenty-four hours. The first question that presents itself is this: how do the greenbottle grubs feed? I know quite well what to give them, but I do not in the least see how they manage to consume it. Do they eat, in the strict sense of the word? I have reasons to doubt it.

Let us consider the grub grown to a sufficient size. It is the usual fly larva, the common maggot, shaped like an elongated cone, pointed in front, truncated behind, where two little red spots show, level with the skin: these are the breathing holes. The front, which is called the head by stretching a word--for it is little more than the entrance to an intestine--the front is armed with two little black hooks, which slide in a translucent sheath, project a little way outside and go in turn by turn. Are we to look upon these as mandibles? Not at all, for, instead of having their points facing each other, as would be required in a real mandibular apparatus, the two hooks work in parallel directions and never meet. What they are is ambulatory organs, grapnels assisting locomotion, which give a purchase on the plane and enable the animal to advance by means of repeated contractions. The maggot walks with the aid of what a superficial examination would pronounce to be a machine for eating. It carries in its gullet the equivalent of the climber's alpenstock.

Let us hold it, on a piece of flesh, under the lens. We shall see it walking about, raising and lowering its head and, each time, stabbing the meat with its pair of hooks. When stationary, with its crupper at rest, it explores space with a continual bending of its fore part; its pointed head pokes about, jabs forward, goes back again, producing and withdrawing its black mechanism. There is a perpetual piston play. Well, look as carefully and conscientiously as I please, I do not once see the weapons of the mouth tackle a particle of flesh that is torn away and swallowed.

The hooks come down upon the meat at every moment, but never take a visible mouthful from it. Nevertheless, the grub waxes big and fat. How does this singular consumer, who feeds without eating, set about it? If he does not eat, he must drink; his diet is soup.

As meat is a compact substance, which does not liquefy of its own accord, there must, in that case, be a certain recipe to dissolve it into a fluid broth. Let us try to surprise the maggot's secret.

In a glass tube, sealed at one end, I insert a piece of lean flesh, the size of a walnut, which I have drained of its juices by squeezing it in blotting paper. On the top of this, I place a few slabs of greenbottle eggs collected a moment ago from the snake in my earthen pan. The number of germs is, roughly, two hundred. Iclose the tube with a cotton plug, stand it upright, in a shady corner of my study, and leave things to take their course. Acontrol tube, prepared like the first, but not stocked with maggots, is placed beside it.