124 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



It is a singular fact that in by far the greater number of cases 

 the provision for the young is made by parents destined never to 

 see their offspring, and who are nearly always dead even before 

 the eggs have hatched, and it is therefore only in a very few cases 

 that there is an actual association between the hatched young and 

 their mothers. The provision seldom extends to more than select- 

 ing or preparing a suitable place in which the eggs may hatch and 

 where the larvae when they emerge may have the proper surroundings 

 and the proper food. 



Among the orthopterous insects the eggs are rather numerous, 

 and are frequently scattered on the ground without any pre- 

 cautions. The common earwig, however, has been observed collect- 

 ing her eggs with her mandibles, arranging them in heaps and 

 brooding over them. When the young emerge, the mother takes 

 no further interest in them, and after a few moults they are com- 

 pletely like the adult. Cockroaches enclose the small number 

 of eggs they produce in a cocoon, which is formed in the interior of 

 the body. When the cocoon leaves the body, it is carried about by 

 the mother for some time and then hidden in a chink, or, in the case 

 of the common cockroach, most frequently just under the edge of 

 a carpet or sheet of oil-cloth. The praying mantis constructs a 

 chambered egg-case, which it attaches to wood or stones. Leaf 

 insects and stick insects deposit very large numbers of eggs 

 almost at random, and the young soon after they are hatched 

 usually have the appearance of their parents, although some, such 

 as the Ceylonese stick insect, go through remarkable changes of 

 shape and colour. Stick insects kept in a glass vivarium case in 

 the Insect House of the London Zoological Gardens produced an 

 enormous number of young. These began to migrate when they 

 were so small that they could pass through the perforated zinc 

 back of their cage, or squeeze between the door and its hinge, and 

 wandered all over the Insect House. The females of the large 

 brown locusts and grasshoppers have several hard projections at 

 the tip of the body, and with these excavate little chambers in the 

 ground in which the eggs are laid along with a fluid exudation that 

 sets to form a resistant lining to the chamber. The eggs of these 

 locusts are much sought by other insects, especially beetles, which 

 are able to penetrate the hard chambers. The young of the 

 migratory locust go through a number of colour changes, the 

 meaning of which is unknown, soon after hatching. On leaving the 

 egg the larva at once moults, and the new skin is green at first, but 



