26 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 



This is its but too partial defense against its 

 special enemies. But liow about those wandering 

 buccaneers, the ants, mites, and spiders? These 

 labor under the same visual defects as the direct 

 parasites, or sometimes greater ones ; and the 

 position of the Qgg^ remote from their usual hunt- 

 ing-ground, must serve as no inconsiderable pro- 

 tection ; how great, there are hardly means of 

 measurement. Their greatest protection from these 

 savages, which cannot fly but must wander cease- 

 lessly about on foot in search of prey with satanic 

 energy, is undoubtedly in the fewness of their num- 

 ber on one plant. The spider that finds two eggs of a 

 Basilarchia in one day must be an excellent hunter. 



Escaped at last from these dangers, which only 

 last at the most ten days, the caterpillar crawls 

 forth from its prison and begins its active life. It 

 is a scrawny, juiceless looking thing, all covered 

 with warts, and less than any other newly born 

 caterpillar would seem a tempting morsel even to 

 an ichneumon or a spider. Yet both make havoc 

 with it at this time. To a wandering ichneumon 

 contact with an empty egg-shell would probably 

 mean, as a result of its inherited wisdom, that 

 some nice young caterpillar was about, and the 

 neighborhood would be all the more thoroughly 



