412 THE LIFE OF AN INSECT. 



ever. And Mr. Baker relates that he once kept 

 a beetle alive for three years without food of any 

 kind whatever ! 



When we call to memory the intense voracity of 

 the insect while a larva, how insatiable its appe- 

 tite, how extensive its ravages, and contrast it 

 with the perfect insect, we are struck with astonish- 

 ment. Why is this, we ask, that in all cases 

 insects eat less when they are fully developed, 

 than when in their infancy and youth ? It is as 

 if a full-grown healthy man were to eat less than 

 his little child a year or two old. The reason ap- 

 pears to be, that in the imago state no further 

 changes (which consume a great deal of material, 

 as may be imagined when we remember the loss 

 of substance in every cast of the skin) are neces- 

 sary ; the insect only requires food sufficient to 

 preserve its life and activity in the state to which 

 it has come, and needs no laying up of stores of 

 fat for future consumption. Fluttering awhile in 

 glorious apparel, through a world of flowers and 

 sunshine, the period of its life runs out, and its 

 only further change is to die, and return to its 

 kindred dust. 



But, before this takes place, one last duty de- 



