CLASSIFICATION AND CREATION. 65 



the number contained on such a surface, I found 

 that there were not less than eight millions of 

 eggs in the whole string. The fertility of these 

 lower animals is truly amazing, and is no doubt 

 a provision of Nature against the many chances 

 of destruction to which these germs, so delicate 

 and often microscopically small, must be exposed. 

 The higher we rise in the Animal Kingdom, the 

 more limited do we find the number of progeny, 

 and the -care bestowed upon them by the parents 

 is in proportion to this diminution. 



The subsequent adventures of these germs 

 form so odd a sequel to their early history, that 

 I will add it here. The eggs are hatched in the 

 water, the embryos first making their appearance 

 as little transparent bodies, moving about by 

 means of verbratile cilia. Their only appen- 

 dages are minute horns attached to one end of 

 the body. Strange to say, their next step in life 

 is to creep into the legs of grasshoppers and bur- 

 row their way into the abdominal cavity of these 

 animals, where they undergo their further develop- 

 ment as Worms, sometimes growing to be two or 

 three inches in length before they are freed. 

 When they have grown so large that the grass- 

 hopper becomes distended by the size of its 

 strange inhabitant, it bursts, the Worm is re- 

 leased, and returns to its aquatic life. When 

 familiar with the vicissitudes in the life of these 







