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that in these extremely small receptacles are somehow 

 stored up all the ancestral history, all the sagas, of the race 

 from which each of these eggs is descended. If the egg hatch, 

 and the insect come to maturity, it will have followed more 

 or less closely the same path of life as did its ancestors. In 

 the course of its development from egg to imago, it may in 

 any one or in all of its stages make some advance useful to 

 itself and its descendants. If this happen, then the advance, 

 however slight, may be stored up in the egg, and so the race 

 will continue its progress. 



