28 ANIMALS OF NO IMPORTANCE. 



although the mali and I daily kill numbers of these 

 destructive creatures their number never seems to diminish. 

 They apparently arise from nowhere, and their continual 

 advent is the best argument I know in favour of spontaneous 

 generation. The carnation-infesting caterpillar spends 

 most of his time inside flower-buds. With his sharp and 

 powerful jaws he bores a neat round hole in the bud, and 

 literally eats his way in. Once inside, he makes short 

 work of the bud-of which he leaves nothing but the calyx. 

 He then proceeds to the next bud, and repeats the opera- 

 tion. Greediness is, I am sorry to have to admit, not an 

 uncommon trait among animals. The caterpillar is greed 

 personified. I should not care to state how many times 

 its own weight of food it devours in a day. The growth of 

 the caterpillar of the privet-hawk moth will enable us to 

 form some idea of the quantity of victuals a caterpillar 

 contrives to put away. It takes thirty-two days to reach the 

 respectable length of four inches its size when full-grown. 

 When first hatched, this caterpillar weighs one-eightieth of 

 a grain ; on the eighth day it will weigh one-eighth of a 

 grain. By the seventeenth day its weight will have 

 reached three and a half grains. In its twentieth day it 

 will turn the scale against a twenty-grain weight, while 

 before it terminates its caterpillar existence it will weigh 

 one hundred and twenty-five grains. Thus, during the 

 month of its life, its weight will have increased a thousand- 

 fold. 



But to return to our carnation-hunting caterpillar. I 

 have never taken the trouble to weigh a specimen on each 

 day of its existence, but I believe that its growing powers 

 are in no way inferior to those of the privet-hawk cater- 

 pillar. The pace at which it works is appalling. I caught 

 one of these animals yesterday, and put him, to his intense 

 disgust, on my desk. I next plucked a young carnation 

 bud, placed it beside the caterpillar, and drove him on to 

 it. At first he sulked and would take no notice of the bud ; 

 then hunger overcame his pride, and he attacked the food 



