Note 1 — Chapter xiv · THE BEMBEX

In this retreat lies a piece of game, one only, quite small and quite insufficient for the greedy nurseling which it is meant to feed. It is a golden-green Fly, a Green-bottle (Lucilia Cæsar),1 who lives on putrid flesh. The Fly served up as food is absolutely motionless. Is she quite dead, or only paralysed? This question will be cleared up later. For the moment we will note the presence, on the side of the game, of a cylindrical egg, white, very slightly curved and a couple of millimetres2 long. It is the egg of the Bembex. As we expected from the mother’s behaviour, there is nothing urgent indoors: the egg is laid and provided with a first ration apportioned to the requirements of the feeble grub which will hatch twenty-four hours hence. The Bembex had no need to re-enter the underground passage for some time and was confining herself to keeping a good look-out all round, or perhaps to digging fresh burrows and continuing to lay her eggs, one by one, each in a cell to itself.