The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-01-18
FACTS ABOUT INSECTS.
How Nature Checks a Development That
Would Overwhelm Mankind.

How Nature Checks a Development That
Would Overwhelm Mankind.
State Entomologist j. A. Lintner, of
New York, gives some interesting facts
on insects. He says that insects, in a
number of species, exceed by far all
the rest of the animal kingdom COM
bined. They are believed to be ten
fold more numerous than all of the
mammals, birds. fishes, reptiles, myria-
pods, crustaceans, worms, mollusks,
radiates and protozoans united. At
the latter part of the seventeenth CEN
fury they were estimated at ten thou
sand species. Judging from past dis
coveries if all the species inhabiting
the globe were known the number
would reach a million.
The rapidity of propagation shown
in some insects is also without paral-
lei elsewhere. Perhaps in the aphides
or plant lice it attains its maximum,
where successive generations of living
young, all of which are females, con-
tinue to be produced throughout the
summer months, without the presence
of the male, by a process which has
been compared to and indeed styled
budding. Prof. Riley, in his recent
studies of the hop-vine aphis, has OBJ
served thirteen generations of the
species in the year. Now, if the average
number of young produced by each
female be one hundred, and every indi-
vidual should attain maturity and pro-
duce its full complement of yong
(Which, however, never can occur in
nature) there would be, as the number
of the twelfth brood alone, not count
ing those of all of the preceding broods,
ten seXtillions of individuals. Where,
as in this instance, figures fail to convey
any adequate conception, take space
and the velocity of light as measure.
We're this brood as above given mar
shaded in line with ten individuals to
linear inch touching one another the
procession would extend to the sun, d
space which light trayerses in eight
minutes, and beyond it to the nearest
fixed star traversed by light only in
six years and still onward in space be-
yond the most distant star that the
strongest telescope may bring to view,
to point so inconceivably remote that
light could only reach us from it in
twenty-five hundred years. How for
tunate it is for the human race that in
view of such amazing capabilities of
increase in the insect world so many
counter-checks have been provided by
providence for the prevention of unre-
stricted development in single direc-
ton, that all nature may still work
together in harmony, when viewed in
its broadcast aspect.
AS to the voracity of insects, DR..
Lintner says: The larval state of
many insects is one of incessant feed
ing. 1t may be dou bted of some if they
ever sleep or even indulge in rest I'M
less disturbed while feeding or during
their melting periods, when time is
demanded for the changes required in
the casting off skin distended to it's
utmost capacity, and the formation of
a new one capable of further extern
sion. Their righteousness and rapid
growth may be shown in the state
ment of two facts: A certain flesh
feeding larva will consume in twenty
four hours two hundred times it's orig
inal weight; parallel to which. in the
human race, would be an infant con-
Stunning, in the first day of its exist
ence, fifteen hundred pounds of nutri-
ment. There are caterpillars which,
during their progress to maturity,
within thirty days, increase in size ten
thousand times. TO equal this remark
able growth a man, at maturity, would
have to weigh forty tons. Chicago
Tribune