The dish of my inventing does not incite dislike: far from it. The grubs
attack it without hesitation and consume it with every appearance of
the usual appetite. Things could not go better if the food had not been
altered by my culinary recipes. Everything goes down, including the
morsels in which I feared that I had overdone the addition of albumen.
And--an even more important point--the Osmia-larvae fed in this manner
attain their normal dimensions and spin their cocoons, from which adult
insects issue in the following year. Notwithstanding the albuminous
regimen, the cycle of the evolution is achieved without impediment.
What are we to conclude from all this? I feel greatly embarrassed. Omne
vivum ex ovo, the physiologists tell us. Every animal is carnivorous, in
its first beginnings: it is formed and nourished at the cost of its egg,
in which albumen predominates. The highest, the mammal, adheres to this
diet for a long time: it has its mother's milk, rich in casein, another
isomer of albumen. The gramnivorous nestling is first fed on grubs,
which are better adapted to the niceties of its stomach; many of the
minutest new-born creatures, being at once left to their own devices,
take to animal food. In this way the original method of nourishment is
continued for all alike: the method which allows flesh to be made from
flesh and blood from blood, with no chemical process beyond the simplest
modification. At maturity, when the stomach has acquired its full
strength, vegetable food is adopted, involving a more complicated
chemistry but easier to obtain. Milk is followed by fodder, worms by
seeds, the prey in the burrow by the nectar of the flowers.
This supplies a partial explanation of the twofold diet of the
Hymenoptera with carnivorous larvae: meat first, honey next. But then
the note of interrogation is shifted. It stood elsewhere; it now stands
here. Why is the Osmia, who as a larva fares so well on albumen, fed on
honey at the start? Why do the Bee-tribe receive a vegetable diet when
the other members of the order receive an animal diet?
If I were a believer in evolution, I should say yes, by the fact of its
germ, every animal is originally carnivorous. The insect in particular
starts with albuminoid materials. Many larvae adhere to the egg-food,
many adult insects do likewise. But the struggle to fill the belly,
which after all is the struggle for life, demands something better than
the precarious hazards of the chase. Man, at first a ravenous hunter
after game, brought the flock into existence and turned shepherd to
avoid a time of dearth. An even greater progress inspired him to scrape
the earth and to sow seed, which assures him of a living. The evolution
from scarcity to moderation and from moderation to plenty has led to the
resources of husbandry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account