LARVAL SACRIFICE 37 



chicken we have the egg, then the young, different at birth from the 

 parent, but rapidly growing to resemble it, upon the addition of 

 food .to the youngster's stomach. In the wasp we have an egg, 

 followed by a grub that is unable, simply by eating, to become like 

 its parent. Something more radical is necessary, a complicated bit 

 of surgery which will knock down the larval house and raise an imago 

 from the ruins! 



Thus in ten days after the larva spins its cocoon we see a slight 

 shrinking of the body. A depression just off center follows. There 

 is a tremor, ever so slight, then slowly the whole perfect insect un- 

 folds from the grub like a nascent flower from its bud. It may re- 

 quire a million years for processes of evolution to become established 

 into a train of events, yet here in the course of a few days, by watch- 

 ing this wonderful transformation from grub to pupa, w r e have 

 actually witnessed the ancestral form sacrificing itself to a modern 

 one! 



The processes that bring about such radical changes in the insect 

 are known as histolysis and histogenesis. The former covers the 

 breaking down and disintegration of the larval tissues and the latter 

 the building of the new body, in part independent of the old material. 

 There is little known of these strange performances, yet it appears 

 to be the general belief that for the most part the perfect insect is 

 developed chiefly from the skin cells of the larva. Therefore, I shall 

 set forth what I have been able to gather through the logic of observa- 

 tion, about this point. I make my statements guardedly simply as 

 facts that appear to have been overlooked. 



A yacht is built and launched. She serves admirably as a pleasure 

 craft and is quite satisfactory for that purpose. War is declared. 

 She is commandeered by the government for patrol duty and must 

 be altered to meet new requirements. She is dry-docked, fitted with 

 guns, more powerful engines are installed, and lastly she is painted 



