THE BIG EATERS 95 



become a stag-beetle, make the enormous branched 

 mandibles and the robust horny covering of the per- 

 l ( t insect? Of what will the larva make the long 

 antennae of the Capricorn? Of what will the cater- 

 pillar make the large wings of the swallow-tail? Of 

 that which the caterpillar, larva, and worm amass 

 now, with thrifty hoarding of life-supporting mat- 

 ter. 



"If the little pink-nosed cat were born without 

 ears, paws, tail, fur, mustaches, if it were simply a 

 little ball of flesh, and should some day have to ac- 

 quire all at once, while asleep, ears, paws, tail, fur, 

 mustaches, and many other things, is it not true 

 that this work of life would necessitate materials 

 leathered together beforehand and held in reserve 

 in the fatty tissues of the animal? No thing can be 

 made from nothing; the smallest hair of the cat's 

 mustache shoots forth at the expense of the sub- 

 stance of the animal, substance which it acquires 

 by eating. 



"The larva is 

 in precisely this 

 case : it has noth- 

 inir, or next to 

 nothing, that the 

 perfect insects 

 must have. It 

 Goat Moth must therefore 



amass, in view of future changes, materials for the 

 change; it must cat for two: for itself first, and 

 tln-n for the insect that will come from its substance, 

 transformed and, in a sense, recast. So the larvae 



