It is unnecessary to go further into the details of these cases, or to consider whether and to what extent every class of the animal kingdom conforms to these principles. Thus to consider all or even most of the classes of the animal kingdom would be quite impossible at the present time, because our knowledge of the duration of life among animals is very incomplete. Biological problems have for a long time excited less interest than morphological ones. There is nothing or almost nothing to be found in existing zoological text books upon the duration of life in animals; and even monographs upon single classes, such as the Amphibia, reptiles, or even birds, contain very little on this subject. When we come to the lower animals, knowledge on this point is almost entirely wanting. I have not been able to find a single reference to the age in Echinodermata, and very little about that of worms, Crustacea, and Coelenterata [See Note 4]. The length of life in many molluscan species is very well known, because the age can be determined by markings on the shell [See Note 5]. But even in this group, any exact knowledge, such as would be available for our purpose, is still wanting concerning such necessary points as the degree of fertility, the relation to other animals, and many other factors. Data the most exact in all respects are found among the insects [See Note 3], and to this class I will for a short time direct your special attention. We will first consider the duration of larval life. This varies very greatly, and chiefly depends upon the nature of the food, and the ease or difficulty with which it can be procured. The larvae of bees reach the pupal stage in five to six days; but it is well known that they are fed with substances of high nutritive value (honey and pollen), and that they require no great effort to obtain the food, which lies heaped up around them. The larval life in many _Ichneumonidae_ is but little longer, being passed in a parasitic condition within other insects; abundance of accessible food is thus supplied by the tissues and juices of the host. Again, the larvae of the blow-fly become pupae in eight to ten days, although they move actively in boring their way under the skin and into the tissues of the dead animals upon which they live. The life of the leaf-eating caterpillars of butterflies and moths lasts for six weeks or longer, corresponding to the lower nutritive value of their food and the greater expenditure of muscular energy in obtaining it. Those caterpillars which live upon wood, such as _Cossus ligniperda_, have a larval life of two to three years, and the same is true of hymenopterous insects with similar habits, such as _Sirex_.