The Life of the Spider 



a supply of 'energy-producing food'; in 

 other words, he lights a few shovelfuls of coal 

 in its inside. This heat will produce mechan- 

 ical work. 



Even so with the beast. As nothing is 

 made- from, nothing, the egg supplies first 

 the materials of the new-born animal; then the 

 plastic food, the smith of living creatures, in- 

 creases the body, up to a certain limit, and re- 

 news it as it wears away. The stoker works 

 at the same time, without stopping. Fuel, 

 the source of energy, makes but a short stay 

 in the system, where it is consumed and fur- 

 nishes heat, whence movement is derived. 

 Life is a fire-box. Warmed by its food, the 

 animal machine moves, walks, runs, jumps, 

 swims, flies, sets its locomotory apparatus 

 going in a thousand manners. 



To return to the young Lycosae, they grow 

 no larger until the period of their emancipa- 

 tion. I find them at the age of seven months 

 the same as when I saw them at their birth. 

 The egg supplied the materials necessary for 

 their tiny frames; and, as the loss of waste 

 substance is, for the moment, excessively small, 

 or even nil, additional plastic food is not 

 needed so long as the beastie does not grow. 

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