54 THE STATE AS FARMER 



eggs are not hatched. Then the weird thing 

 that is hatched seizes upon a certain little 

 snail and makes its abode with it, and there 

 sets to work to weave other destructive spells. 

 The resultant parasites represent the action 

 known as lying in wait, for they just become 

 encased and remain quiet until the sheep 

 swallows one of them with its food. What a 

 study in numbers is here ! Forty or fifty 

 thousand are prepared in their blind way to 

 die to catch one sheep, because that one 

 sheep may bring about the birth of forty 

 or fifty thousand more parasites. And an 

 epidemic, secured by a wet season, may 

 cause us to lose to the fluke-enemy millions 

 of sheep ! Here, surely, is still another reason 

 for careful drainage, and for the guidance 

 of those higher students who can actually 

 trace out the life-story of this wonderful 

 pest and teach us how to deal with it in 

 the wisest way. 



Now if nature, to put the case vaguely, 

 inspires this organism to transform itself, to 

 wait about, to run all risks — and these are 

 so great that a one or two per cent, survival 

 has to be sufficient to carry through its 



