Its mouth, closed with a wire-gauze cover, reaches the level of various other appliances, test-tubes and jars, which are already stocked or awaiting their colony of vermin.

When the position is well-known to the Flies, I remove the other tubes and leave the column, lest the visitors should turn aside to easier ground.
From time to time the Bluebottle and the Flesh-fly perch on the trellis-work, make a short investigation and then decamp.

Throughout the summer season, for three whole months, the apparatus remains where it is, without result: never a worm.

What is the reason?
Does the stench of the meat not spread, coming from that depth?
Certainly it spreads: it is unmistakable to my dulled nostrils and still more so to the nostrils of my children, whom I call to bear witness.

Then why does the Flesh-fly, who but now was dropping her grubs from a goodly height, refuse to let them fall from the top of a column twice as high?
Does she fear lest her worms should be bruised by an excessive drop?
There is nothing about her to point to anxiety aroused by the length of the shaft.