AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOK THEIR YOUNG. 343 



aware that it would not suffice for the support of two, 

 and proceeds in search of some other yet unoccupied. 

 — The process is of course varied in the case of those 

 minute species of which several, sometimes as many as 

 1 50, can subsist in a single caterpillar. The little Ich- 

 neumon then repeats her operations until she has darted 

 into her victim the requisite number of eggs. 



The larvae hatched from the eggs thus ingeniously 

 deposited, find a delicious banquet in the body of the 

 caterpillar, which is sure eventually to fall a victim to 

 their ravages. So accurately, however, is the supply of 

 food proportioned to the demand, that this event does 

 not take place until the young Ichneumons have at- 

 tained their full growth ; when the caterpillar either 

 dies, or, retaining just vitality enough to assume the 

 pupa state, then finishes its existence ; the pupa dis- 

 closing not a moth or a butterfly, but one or more full- 

 grown Ichneumons. 



In this strange and apparently cruel operation one 

 circumstance is truly remarkable. The larva of the 

 Ichneumon, though every day, perliaps for months, it 

 gnaws the inside of the caterpillar, and though at last 

 it has devoured almost every part of it except the skin 

 and intestines, carefully all this time avoids injuring the 

 vital organs, as if aware that its own existence depends 

 on that of the insect on which it preys ! Thus the ca- 

 terpillar continues to eat, to digest, and to move, ap- 

 parently little injured, to the last, and only perishes 

 when the parasitic grub within it no longer requires its 

 aid. What would be the impression which a similar 

 instance amongst the race of quadrupeds would make 

 upon us ? — If, for example, an animal — such as some 



