rst beginnings; they are formed and nourished at the expense of
the egg, in which albumen predominates. The highest, the mammals, adhere
to this diet for a considerable time; they live by the maternal milk,
rich in casein, another isomer of albumen. The gramnivorous nestling is
fed first upon worms and grubs, which are best adapted to the delicacy
of its stomach; many newly born creatures among the lower orders, being
immediately left to their own devices, live on animal diet. In this way
the original method of alimentation is continued--the method which
builds flesh out of flesh and makes blood out of blood with no chemical
processes but those of simple reconstruction. In maturity, when the
stomach is more robust, a vegetable diet may be adopted, involving a
more complex chemistry, although the food itself is more easily
obtained. To milk succeeds fodder; to the worm, seeds and grain; to the
dead or paralysed insects of the natal burrow, the nectar of flowers.

Here is a partial explanation of the double system of the Hymenoptera
with their carnivorous larvae--the system of dead or paralysed insects
followed by honey. But here the point of interrogation, already
encountered elsewhere, erects itself once again. Why is the larva of
the Osmia, which thrives upon albumen, actually fed upon honey during
its early life? Why is a vegetable diet the rule in the hives of bees
from the very commencement, when the other members of the same series
live upon animal food?

If I were a "transformist" how I should delight in this question! Yes, I
should say: yes, by the fact of its germ every animal is originally
carnivorous. The insect in particular makes a beginning with albuminoid
materials. Many larvae adhere to the alimentation present in the egg, as
do many adult insects also. But the struggle to fill the belly, which is
actually the struggle for life, demands something better than the
precarious chances of the chase. Man, at first an eager hunter of game,
collected flocks and became a shepherd in order to profit by his
possessions in time of dearth. Further progress inspired him to till the
earth and sow; a method which assured him of a certain living. Evolution
from the defective to the mediocre, and from the mediocre to the
abundant, has led to the resources of agriculture.

The lower animals have preceded us on the way of progress. The ancestors
of the Philanthus, in the remote ages of the lacustrian tertiary
formations, l