390 TROPICAL WILD LIFE IN BRITISH GUIANA 



ent and highly specialized member of the topmost order of 

 modern insects. 



We have traced the larva from the time the parent wasp 

 deposited it as a tiny egg upon the roach's body. We have 

 watched its growth from day to day and observed how it 

 tackles one victim, consumes it, searches out a second then 

 a third and fourth ; how it eats the tender portions first and 

 returns later to coarser fare. Its actions are almost those of 

 a creature conscious of its life and appetite which thinks 

 only of its stomach and so many good things to be consumed. 

 But the minute the repast is over, and the cocoon spun, we 

 see this energetic and ravenous bit of life cease all outward 

 activities. 



From young to full-grown larva, the creature is, in a 

 measure, master of itself. It moves about in the cell of its 

 own accord, feeds itself copiously and rests if need be, but 

 thereafter it must surrender to an incomprehensible power, 

 an invisible surgeon who will anesthetize the grub, tear down 

 its old body and bring forth a new and better creature from 

 the havoc of his scalpel. 



During the operation, many of the larval organs and 

 tissues are entirely done away with, and at the same time 

 many parts of the new insect are derived from them. There 

 is no spilling of blood, no suffering, no consciousness of what 

 is taking place within the larval skin. From the exterior 

 we see nothing to hint of what is transpiring. All is serene 

 during the ten days that the operation requires for 

 completion. 



This strange process of "second birth," (I have no ade- 

 quate term for it) , is known in creatures other than insects. 

 From the blood and tissue of the horse, the foetus is pro- 

 duced, and eventually born. It arrives quite like the parent 

 except for minor details. Without radical changes it feeds, 

 lives and grows to maturity. In the chicken we have the egg, 

 then the young, different at birth from the parent, but rap- 

 idly growing to resernble it, upon the addition of food to the 



