OC TRANSFORMATION OF INSECTS, 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE TRANSFORMATION OF INSECTS. 



The next thing to think of is the way in which the 

 bee is produced — born into the world ready for its 

 busy, active life. 



The bee — and it is the same with all insects — 

 comes from a tiny egg laid by the mother insect. It 

 is, however, an &^^ which greatly differs in many 

 respects, besides its size, from the &g^ of a bird. 

 Both eggs — the &g'g of the bird and the egg of the 

 insect — contain that which, after a time, will become, 

 as the case may be, the young bird or the young 

 insect ; but the process by which this end is reached 

 is very different in the two cases. 



You all know the process with the egg of the 

 bird. Nurtured by the parents' warmth and care, 

 the egg hatches, and produces the young bird ; 

 which, in most cases, is as helpless as any infant, 

 although in some instances, as with the common 

 chicken, it is able to run, and feed itself at once. In 

 every case, however, the young one, immediately it is 

 hatched, is without doubt a bird. It may be a poor, 

 wretched-looking, unfledged little thing ; but all the 

 same, it is plainly a bird, and it goes through no 

 further change. It only grows gradually to its 

 perfect condition. 



But with the egg of the insect the process is very 

 different. It hatches, and produces, not an insect, 



