HABITS. 101 



The growth of the embryo within the egg is 

 rapid, so that it sometimes hatches in a few days, 

 although some eggs endure throughout a winter 

 and hatch in the spring. Each, however, has its 

 appointed time within very narrow limits ; and 

 when the time of birth arrives, the little prisoner 

 has but to move his jaws, already in contact with 

 the egg-shell, to bite a hole through it for his 

 escape ; often he bites a slit around the summit 

 of the egg, and, pushing up the lid thus formed, 

 takes his departure. The taste he has gained of 

 egg-shell seems to allure him ; for, strange as it 

 may seem, although placed by the provident parent 

 within immediate reach of choice and succulent 

 food, he will not taste it until he has devoured 

 the last remnant of his prison- walls. Strange food 

 this for a new-born babe ! The act, however, is 

 plainly a provision of nature by which the tender 

 animal is rid of a sure token to his enemies of his 

 immediate proximity. Yet whence did he learn 

 his lesson, perched quite by himself, maybe, as 

 in the case of the Viceroy's caterpillar, upon the 

 outmost twig of a poplar, out of sight of a soli- 

 tary companion ? Is this reason or instinct ? and 

 if instinct, will those who believe this power to 

 be only an accumulated inheritance of ancestral 

 wisdom pray give us a single suggestion of the 

 line of descent by which this lonely, defenceless 

 creature learned Ms art ? 



