PART II 



THE LIFE-HISTORY OF ANIMALS 



CHAPTER VII 

 MULTIPLICATION AND DEVELOPMENT 



Multiplication, — We know that any living animal has 

 parents; that is, has been produced by other animals which 

 may still be living or be now dead or, as with Amceba, may 

 have changed, by division, into new individuals. Individuals 

 die, but before death, they produce other individuals like 

 themselves. If they did not, their kind or species would 

 die with them. This production of new animals constantly 

 going on is called the reproduction or multiplication of 

 animals. The process is well called multiplication, because 

 each female animal normally produces more than one new 

 individual. She may produce only one at a time, one a 

 year, as many of the sea-birds do or as the elephant does, 

 but she lives many years. Or she may produce hundreds, 

 or thousands, or even millions of young in a very short time. 

 A lobster lays 10,000 eggs at a time. Nearly nine millions 

 of eggs have been taken from the body of a thirty-pound 

 female codfish. As a matter of fact but very, very few of 

 these eggs produce new animals which- reach maturity. 

 From the 10,000 eggs produced by the lobster each year 

 an average of but two new mature lobsters is produced. 

 There is always a struggle for food and for place going on 

 among animals, for many more are produced than there 

 are food and room for, and so of all the new or young animals 



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