Even in this imperfect case, it is obvious that the greenbottle grubs begin by liquefying their food. Incapable of taking solid nourishment, they first transform the spoil into running matter; then, dipping their heads into the product, they drink, they slake their thirst, with long sups. Their dissolvent, comparable in its effects with the gastric juice of the higher animals, is, beyond a doubt, emitted through the mouth. The piston of the hooks, continually in movement, never ceases spitting it out in infinitesimal doses. Each spot touched receives a grain of some subtle pepsin, which soon suffices to make that spot run in every direction. As digesting, when all is said, merely means liquefying, it is no paradox to assert that the maggot digests its food before swallowing it. These experiments with my filthy, evil smelling tubes have given me some delightful moments. The worthy Abbe Spallanzani must have known some such when he saw pieces of raw meat begin to run under the action of the gastric juice which he took, with pellets of sponge, from the stomachs of crows. He discovered the secrets of digestion; he realized in a glass tube the hitherto unknown labors of gastric chemistry. I, his distant disciple, behold once more, under a most unexpected aspect, what struck the Italian scientist so forcibly. Worms take the place of the crows. They slaver upon meat, gluten, albumen; and those substances turn to fluid. What our stomach does within its mysterious recesses the maggot achieves outside, in the open air. It first digests and then imbibes. When we see it plunging into the carrion broth, we even wonder if it cannot feed itself, at least to some extent, in a more direct fashion. Why should not its skin, which is one of the most delicate, be capable of absorbing? I have seen the egg of the sacred beetle and other dung beetles growing considerably larger--I should like to say, feeding--in the thick atmosphere of the hatching chamber. Nothing tells us that the grub of the greenbottle does not adopt this method of growing. I picture it capable of feeding all over the surface of its body. To the gruel absorbed by the mouth it adds the balance of what is gathered and strained through the skin. This would explain the need for provisions liquefied beforehand.