CHAPTER XXII 



THE BIG EATERS 



IX SECTS propagate themselves by eggs, which 

 they lay, with admirable foresight, where the 

 young will be sure to find nourishment. The little 

 creature that comes from the egg is a larva, a feeble 

 irrul), which, most often, has to shift for itself, pro- 

 cure at its own risk food and shelter the most diffi- 

 cult thinir in this world. In these painful begin- 

 nings it cannot expect any help from its mother, 

 dead some time before ; for in insect life the parents 

 generally die before the hatching of the eggs that 

 produce the young. Without delay the little larva 

 sets to work. It eats. It is its sole business, and 

 a <erious one, on which its future depends. It eats, 

 not only to keep up its strength from day to day, but 

 ahove all to acquire the plumpness necessary for its 

 future metamorphosis. I must tell you and this 

 perhaps will surprise you that an insect ceases to 

 irrow after attaining its final perfect form. It is 

 known, too, that there are insects among others. 

 the butterfly of the silkworm that do not take any 

 nourishment at all. 



"A cat is at first a tiny little pink-nosed erea 

 ill that it could rest in the hollow of the 

 liaml. In one or tw<> immths it is a pretty kitten 



that aimiM's itself at a mere nothing, and with Lta 



03 



