others.

All that I can see by way of a glimpse--and even then I put
forward my suspicions with extreme reserve--all that I am
permitted to surmise is reduced to this: the substance of the
sleeping larva as yet has no very definite static existence; it is
like the raw materials collected for a building; it is waiting for
the elaboration that is to make a bee of it. To mould those
shapeless lumps of the future insect, the air, that prime adjuster
of living things, circulates among them, passing through a network
of ducts. To organize them, to direct the placing of them, the
nervous system, the embryo of the animal, distributes its
ramifications over them. Nerve and air duct, therefore, are the
essentials; the rest is so much material in reserve for the
process of the metamorphosis. As long as that material is not
employed, as long as it has not acquired its final equilibrium, it
can grow less and less; and life, though languishing, will
continue all the same on the express condition that the
respiratory organs and the nervous filaments be respected. It is
as it were the flame of the lamp, which, whether full or empty,
continues to give light so long as the wick is soaked in oil.
Nothing but fluids, the plastic materials held in reserve, can be
distilled by the Anthrax' sucker through the unpierced skin of the
grub; no part of the respiratory and nervous systems passes. As
the two essential functions remain unscathed, life goes on until
exhaustion is completed. On the other hand, if I myself injure
the larva, I disturb the nervous or air conducting filaments; and
the bruised part spreads a taint, followed by putrefaction, all
over the body.