264 THE INFANCY OF ANIMALS 



these enforced fasts, the hungry senior turns upon his 

 youngest brother and eats him : sometimes the second 

 follows suit, leaving the survivor in the position of the 

 Mate of the Nancy Brig ! This must be a common oc- 

 currence, for a nest of three youngsters is rare in the 

 hills ; but in the more productive valleys such broods are 

 the rule. 



Crime in the nursery is happily rare in the animal king- 

 dom, but there are nevertheless numerous well-authenti- 

 cated instances of the kind just quoted. Young whelks 

 invariably derive a part of their nourishment after this 

 fashion. The large globular bunches of the egg-capsules 

 of the whelk must be familiar to most of my readers, for 

 they are strewn along the beaches all around our coast. 

 Each bunch contains five or six hundred capsules, and each 

 capsule contains several hundred eggs, which must be 

 rather a crowd when embryos begin to develop. But the 

 numbers are soon reduced, for the embryonic life is ap- 

 parently passed in an endless cannibal feast, only thirty 

 or forty young whelks eventually emerging from each of 

 these tiny chambers. 



No less gruesome is the case furnished by the larvae 

 of some of the gaU-flies (Cecidomyiidce). Herein an adult 

 ily lays a few very large eggs, out of which come larvae 

 that while stiU larvae become mothers, producing larvae 

 within their own bodies. These feed upon the tissues of 

 their larval mother, and when they have quite consumed 

 her they bite a hole through the empty skin and creep out, 

 becoming themselves adult ! 



Parents, we know, under stress of circumstances, as of 

 famine or terror, will eat their offspring. Even among 

 the human race, as we learn from Biblical and other 

 sources, these unnatural and horrid meals are partaken of. 



