ENTOMOLOGICAL. 49 



how, at the conclusion of this experiment, I was astonished 

 to find, secreted at the bottom of this cleverly contrived 

 nest, the body of a fine fat blue-bottle, which the self- 

 denying mother had concealed for the purpose of afford- 

 in g food for her numerous family until they were strong 

 enough to find their own food, she no longer being in 

 the land of the living ; but I have not there told the result 

 of an experiment I made that evening with one of her 

 artificially hatched babies, so I will complete this story 

 while we are looking at our object. 



I put one of these little creatures, born in my 

 trousers pocket remember, in the live-box, and watched 

 the beating of its pulse, and I counted thirty-five pulsa- 

 tions to the minute, against my own fifty-eight. 



Whether from heat from the reflection of the lamp 

 through the condensing lens, or from confinement, or 

 excitement, I cannot tell ; but I know that, while my own 

 pulse increased, being not a little delighted with my experi- 

 ment, my baby's pulse rose from fifty-eight in the minute 

 to 150 ! I laughed at the idea of feeling a spider's pulse ; 

 but when I read, afterwards, that Hunter, the celebrated 

 anatomist, was similarly employed in counting the pulsa- 

 tions in the body of my little friend, the house-fly, I 

 considered I followed good example in an interesting 

 experiment. 



You know, of course, that the first form of the living 

 insect, when liberated from its prison-house, is the cater- 

 pillar. Here is a very fine specimen of the larva of 

 the Vapourer moth. Let us look first at larvx, then the 

 pupde, then the imago. 



If you have read the volume preceding this, on " Solo- 

 mon's Little People," a story about the ants, you will not 

 need to be reminded that these scientific terms signify, 

 first a mask (it doth not yet appear what the thing, so 



D 



