62 FOOD 



Insect larvae are very voracious. The Daddy-long-legs 

 in this stage will consume five to ten times its own body- 

 weight daily. These larvae are further inveterate cannibals. 



Amongst the animals that live on the skin of grouse are 

 some very well-groomed, little, chestnut-coloured insects 

 called "bird-lice." They live entirely on the smaller parts of 

 the feathers, and as they take no fluid they enjoy a very arid 

 diet. 



Wasps are carnivorous, chewing up spiders, insects, and 

 pieces of flesh torn from larger carcases. Bits of all these are 

 carried by the worker wasp to the young larvae who, hanging 

 upside-down in their papery cells, greedily devour them. 

 Bumble-bees feed on pollen and a very watery honey, "weak 

 but palatable" as Mr F. in Little Dorrit found the wines of 

 France. The worker bee supplies the larva with a food which 

 is secreted from its salivary glands. It is known as "pap" 

 or "royal jelly" and has a white or yellowish jelly-like appear- 

 ance. The worker fills the cell with this food and the larva 

 not only eagerly laps it into its mouth but probably absorbs 

 the pabulum, in which it floats, through its tender skin. 

 On the fourth day after hatching the worker-larva is partially 

 weaned and its food is now mixed with honey; twenty-four 

 hours later the drones are completely weaned and are hence- 

 forth fed only on honey and pollen. The queen-larvae, on the 

 other hand, are always and solely fed on "royal jelly." They 

 consume great quantities, their roomy royal-cell being flooded 

 with it. This food has an extraordinary effect on the future 

 of the brood ; if continuously given to a larva of the worker- 

 class that larva will develop into a queen-bee ; if continuously 

 given to a drone-larva, the resultant drone will be of an 

 enormous and monstrous gro^vth, but its testes will suffer 

 a fatty degeneration and disappear. After five and a half 

 days the queen-larvae, and after six days the drone and worker- 

 larvae, cease to feed, and turn into pupae. 



The termites or white ants, not to be confused wdth the 

 true ants of our fields and woods, make enormous ant-heaps 

 in the warmer parts of the world. They keep the interior of 

 their home scrupulously clean. They eat all refuse, cast 

 skins, dead bodies of their friends; even the matter which 



