It is a curious spectacle even after that of the Anthrax. We have
here twenty or thirty starvelings, all with their mouths pressed,
as for a kiss, to the body of the plump larva, which, from day to
day, fades and shrinks without the least appreciable wound, thus
keeping fresh until reduced to a shriveled slough. If I disturb
the gluttonous swarm, all, with a sudden recoil, let go, drop off
and flounder around the foster mother. They are no less prompt in
resuming their savage kisses. I need not add that neither at the
point where they leave off nor at the point where they recommence
is there the faintest trace of liquid. The oily exudation occurs
only when the pump is at work. To linger over this strange method
of feeding is superfluous after what I have said about the Anthrax.

The appearance of the full grown insect takes place at the
beginning of summer, after nearly a whole year's stay in the
invaded dwelling. The large number of inhabitants of one and the
same cell led me to think that the work of deliverance ought to
present a certain interest. They are all equally anxious to clear
the walls of the prison at the earliest possible moment and to come
forth into the great festival of the sun: do they all at the same
time, in a confused horde, attack the ceiling which has to be
pierced? Is the work of deliverance arranged in the general
interest? Or is individual selfishness the only rule? These are
the questions which observation will answer.

A little in advance of the proper season, I transfer each family
into a short glass tube, which will represent the natal cell. A
good, thick cork, quite a centimeter deep, is the obstacle to be
pierced for an outlet. Well, instead of the mad haste and the