356 GENERAL ZOOLOGY 



conditions but little danger of the extermination of any given 

 species. Most birds protect and feed their young as long as the 

 young are weak and unable to care for themselves. Bird nests 

 are in most cases temporary homes, built primarily for the pro- 

 tection of the young, and therefore occupied only during the 

 breeding season. 



Among other animals the protection, care, and rearing of 

 the young seem to be the principal business of life. The 

 meticulous care which the honeybee bestows upon the young in 

 all stages of development is an example. The food of the devel- 

 oping larvae is not only collected but is partially digested by the 

 workers before being administered to the young. The character 

 of the food is changed to suit the change in requirements of 

 the larva at different stages of its development. The care 

 and the guardianship exercised by the worker do not cease until 

 the young reaches its fully developed condition when it is relin- 

 quished with a few final touches. The remarkable part of it 

 all is that the progeny are not the offspring of the workers, but of 

 the queen. Parental care is exercised only by the foster parents. 



The method employed by the digger wasp of the genus 4m- 

 mophila for providing the young with food during the larval period 

 has some points of seeming refinement about it that merit 

 notice. The food, consisting of caterpillars which the wasp over- 

 comes by stinging, is sealed in the burrow with the wasp's eggs. 

 A discriminating surgical skill has been ascribed to the wasp 

 because in many cases the caterpillar is not killed by the sting 

 but only paralyzed, and this has been interpreted as an adapta- 

 tion to keep the food alive until the larvae of the wasp are ready 

 to feed upon it. Unfortunately for this idea it has been shown 

 that in cases where the wasp has killed the caterpillars, the 

 larvae feed upon the dead bodies with as much satisfaction as 

 upon the paralyzed ones. It seems to be largely a matter of 

 chance whether the stinging of the caterpillar causes death or 

 paralysis, and so far as the larvae are concerned it makes no 

 difference whether the food provided is dead or kept in live 

 storage. 



One of the most curious habits in guarding and rearing the 

 young is found in a species of marine catfish, the gaff-topsail 

 catfish, Felichthys felts, a subtropical form common along the 

 South Atlantic coast of the United States, the male of which car- 



