I took a final glance at the eggs before returning to my own larger world, and I detected a new complication, one which left me with feelings too involved for calm scientific contemplation. As if a Martian should suddenly become visible to an astronomer, I found that one of the egg planets was inhabited. Perched upon the summit--quite near the north pole--was an insect, a wasp, much smaller than the egg itself. And as I looked, I saw it at the climax of its diminutive life; for it reared up, resting on the tips of two legs and the iridescent wings, and sunk its ovipositor deep into the crystalline surface. As I watched, an egg was deposited, about the latitude of New York, and with a tremor the tiny wasp withdrew its instrument and rested. On the same leaf were casually blown specks of dust, larger than the quartette of eggs. To the plant the cluster weighed nothing, meant nothing more than the dust. Yet a moment before they contained the latent power of great harm to the future growth of the weed--four lusty caterpillars would work from leaf to leaf with a rapidity and destructiveness which might, even at the last, have sapped the maturing seeds. Now, on a smaller scale, but still within the realm of insect life, all was changed--the plant was safe once more and no caterpillars would emerge. For the wasp went from sphere to sphere and inoculated every one with the promise of its kind. The plant bent slightly in a breath of wind, and knew nothing; the butterfly was far away to my left, deep-drinking in a cluster of yellow cassia; the wasp had already forgotten its achievement, and I alone--an outsider, an interloper--observed, correlated, realized, appreciated, and--at the last--remained as completely ignorant as the actors themselves of the real driving force, of the certain beginning, of the inevitable end. Only a momentary cross-section was vouchsafed, and a wonder and a desire to know fanned a little hotter. I had far from finished with my weed: for besides the cuts and tears and disfigurements of the leaves, I saw a score or more of curious berry-like or acorn-like growths, springing from both leaf and stem. I knew, of course, that they were insect-galls, but never before had they meant quite so much, or fitted in so well as a significant phenomenon in the nexus of entangling relationships between the weed and its environment. This visitor, also a minute wasp of sorts, neither bit nor cut the leaves, but quietly slipped a tiny egg here and there into the leaf-tissue.