So, at least, we conclude from physiological data; but our conclusions are false, because contradicted by the fact that the mature animal with its case has been just now created.
Let us forsake the ocean-shore, and walk again through the glades of the virgin forest. A White-ant (Termes) crosses our path, and, by tracking him home, we speedily discover his dwelling, an enormous structure composed of gnawed wood cemented with an animal secretion, and formed into thin but very firm and hard layers. Swarms of labourers are passing in and out; and, on our breaking away a portion of the edifice, out come crowding the warriors, with formidable jaws extended widely, ready for the fight. In the interior we find numerous chambers stored with food, and nurseries occupied by young and eggs, the number of which is every hour increasing by the oviposition of the gravid female,—the queen of the city—who is lodged in an apartment in the very centre of the whole.
The entire edifice has been built around her; she is the hope of the colony, the only mother in this vast assemblage. It is therefore through her that we must look for a past history; and in her we find it. Some months ago, when she was not more than one thousandth part as large as she is now, though then adult, she migrated from some other city not less populous than this is now. It was just before the periodical rains, when, at the time of the great annual swarming, myriads of winged males and females were evolved from the pupa state, and flew out from their native city. This individual female was found by some of the workers that now compose this colony, and was immediately selected to be at once their prisoner and their queen.
We thus trace our great egg-laying Termes to a city of last year's building, in which for a time she was in an immature condition as a nymph, and before that passed a still less-developed stage as a larva. Hence her life-history goes yet farther back to an egg, originally laid by a former female in exactly the same circumstances as those in which we find this guarded and immured individual.
Thus we reason; but the female, with her host of attendants, and the house, which is inseparable from their present stage of existence, has been created to-day.
See that creature which with loud ringing hum is whirling round and round the tassel-like blossoms of this noble Eugenia. You would think it a bird from its massive size, but it flashes and sparkles in the sun, like a great jewel. Now it suddenly alights on one of the crimson flowers, and you may perceive that it is a beetle;—a beetle of vast size, and glittering like a lump of burnished metal;—it bears the name of Goliath,—a giant clad in polished armour.
This is his first hour of existence; now for the first time has his nervous system responded to the stimulus of the sweet air and genial sunshine. An hour ago he had no nervous system; no system of any sort; no life; no being; no anything;—he was not until this hour.
Yet if we were to ask a friend conversant with entomology his opinion on the age of this insect, he would immediately give it; not, however, as an opinion, for he would repudiate the uncertainty which such a word implies, but as an indubitable fact, resting on the infallible grounds of constant observation and undeviating experience.