6 
HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. [Packard. 
was 32.8 per cent. In Germany, according to Latreille, 
the larva of a species of moth (Psilura monacha) consumed 
whole forests.” In Eastern Prussia, three years ago, more 
than 24,000,000 cubic inches of fir had to be cut down 
because the trees were attacked by insects. 
In view of these facts let us now look at some points in the 
life of an insect. Though the process of building up the 
tissues of the body by cell growth had not been distinctly 
enunciated, Ilerold had given in the remarkable plates to 
his “ Disquisitiones ” clear representations of the gathering 
of the cells ; and, as the result, the faint line of tissues just 
entering upon the threshold of life in outlines too vague to 
admit of a guess as to what the future animal might be. 
Then the division of the elongated body into distinct rings, 
and the gradual, though but partial, evolution of organs, when 
antennae, jaws and legs are all alike to the eye of the beholder, 
leave it yet a question whether any further development is 
to be arrested here, and the creature remain the lowest of its 
type, or still pass on to higher grades, following unerringly 
the law impressed upon its being. The embryo itself sets 
the question at rest when it eats its way through its shell, 
and after devouring its former habitation, as it often does, 
settles down quickly upon the leaf it is born upon, and 
forthwith begins its riotous life. 
Before Von Siebold had published his tract upon a parthe¬ 
nogenesis * among bees and moths, it was currently believed 
that the bee grub was developed into a drone, queen or neuter, 
according to the quality of the food or “bee bread” it was 
fed with. But this acute and painstaking physiologist, by 
the aid of intelligent and scientific bee mastersan Germany, 
brought out these astonishing facts in the generation of in¬ 
sects : that the queen bee, after her marriage flight far up in 
the air, laid two sorts of eggs ; that while some of the eggs 
were, at the will of the queen, fertilized and produced workers, 
* That is, the production of young from a virgin insect. 
6 
