5
“I think there are too many of us in here,” said one of the ichneumon-grubs the next morning. “I can’t breathe.”
“There’s a way out of that,” said one of the others. “Let’s bite a hole in the creature’s air-ducts; then we’ll get air enough. But see that he has one or two left, or we shall risk his going and suffocating before his time.”
It was no sooner said than done. But the caterpillar screamed louder than ever.
“Air! Air! I shall die of suffocation!”
“No, you won’t,” replied the young ones. “But you had better accustom yourself to be content with little. Hurry back to the cabbage.”
“Now it’s all up with me,” said the caterpillar, one morning.
“You may be right, this time,” replied the ichneumon-grubs.
That evening, they ate the last remnant of their host. Only the skin was left of the dead caterpillar. It lay dry and shrivelled up outside the grubs, who nestled in it as in a warm fur.
One fine day, they flew out. Pretty little animals they were, with light, bright wings, like their parents.
“Hurrah!” they cried. “Now it’s only a question of finding a caterpillar for our young. Each for himself and the devil take the hindmost: such is nature’s law. We are nature’s police: we see to it that things keep their balance. It would be a hideous world indeed, if it were full of caterpillars!”
“Or of ichneumon-flies!” piped the swallow and gulped down a mouthful of them as he spoke.
THE BEECH AND THE OAK