SILK- WORM MOTH LARVA. 



141 



that the principal duty of the larva, so long as 

 it lived, was to eat. It is born often only to eat 

 as much as possible, and to grow as large as pos- 

 sible within a given time ; and in obedience to 

 this principle, we find Iarva3 with the sharpest of 

 sharp appetites embark in their career of existence, 

 eating from their birth, all the way along to their 

 final change. It is therefore, obviously, a very 

 important part of the larva's history of which we 

 have been speaking for some pages past. Consi- 

 dering the fact to have been now brought into 

 sufficient prominence, we shall proceed to notice 

 the rate at which larvae grow, and the actual 

 quantities of food 

 some of them de- 

 vour. Let us speak 

 of the last first. 



Silk, as the 

 youngest of our 

 readers knows, is 

 the production of 

 a little larva com- 

 monly called the 

 silk-worm. Now, some years ago, the calculation 

 was made that in the United Kingdom alone was 



Silk- worm Moth and her Eggs. 



