Note 1 — Chapter XII · THE VOLUCELLA

In the same way, the Nightingale and his gastronomical rivals would haunt the neighbourhood of the Wasps’-nests, if the dead grubs were cast out on the surface of the soil; but these delicacies fall inside the burrow and no little bird would dare to enter the murky cave, even if the entrance were not too small to admit it. Other consumers are needed here, small in size and great in daring; the Fly is called for and her maggot, the king of the departed. What the Greenbottles, Bluebottles and Flesh-flies1 do in the open air, at the expense of every kind of corpse, other Flies, narrowing their province, do underground at the Wasps’ expense.